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“We’re all potential victims.”—Peter Christ, retired police officer

It’s the middle of the night.

Your neighborhood is in darkness. Your household is asleep.

Suddenly, you’re awakened by a loud noise.

Someone or an army of someones has crashed through your front door.

The intruders are in your home.

Your heart begins racing. Your stomach is tied in knots. The adrenaline is pumping through you.

You’re not just afraid. You’re terrified.

Desperate to protect yourself and your loved ones from whatever threat has invaded your home, you scramble to lay hold of something—anything—that you might use in self-defense. It might be a flashlight, a baseball bat, or that licensed and registered gun you thought you’d never need.

You brace for the confrontation.

Shadowy figures appear at the doorway, screaming orders, threatening violence.

Chaos reigns.

You stand frozen, your hands gripping whatever means of self-defense you could find.

Just that simple act—of standing frozen in fear and self-defense—is enough to spell your doom.

The assailants open fire, sending a hail of bullets in your direction.

You die without ever raising a weapon or firing a gun in self-defense.

In your final moments, you get a good look at your assassins: it’s the police.

Brace yourself, because this hair-raising, heart-pounding, jarring account of a no-knock, no-announce SWAT team raid is what passes for court-sanctioned policing in America today, and it could happen to any one of us.

Nationwide, SWAT teams routinely invade homes, break down doors, kill family pets (they always shoot the dogs first), damage furnishings, terrorize families, and wound or kill those unlucky enough to be present during a raid.

No longer reserved exclusively for deadly situations, SWAT teams are now increasingly being deployed for relatively routine police matters such as serving a search warrant, with some SWAT teams being sent out as much as five times a day.

SWAT teams have been employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of so-called criminal activity or mere community nuisances: angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession, to give a brief sampling. In some instances, SWAT teams are even employed, in full armament, to perform routine patrols.

These raids, which might be more aptly referred to as “knock-and-shoot” policing, have become a thinly veiled, court-sanctioned means of giving heavily armed police the green light to crash through doors in the middle of the night.

No-knock raids, a subset of the violent, terror-inducing raids carried out by police SWAT teams on unsuspecting households, differ in one significant respect: they are carried out without police having to announce and identify themselves as police.

It’s a chilling difference: to the homeowner targeted for one of these no-knock raids, it appears as if they are being set upon by villains mounting a home invasion.

Never mind that the unsuspecting homeowner, woken from sleep by the sounds of a violent entry, has no way of distinguishing between a home invasion by criminals as opposed to a police mob. In many instances, there is little real difference.

According to an in-depth investigative report by The Washington Post, “police carry out tens of thousands of no-knock raids every year nationwide.”

While the Fourth Amendment requires that police obtain a warrant based on probable cause before they can enter one’s home, search and seize one’s property, or violate one’s privacy, SWAT teams are granted “no-knock” warrants at high rates such that the warrants themselves are rendered practically meaningless.

If these aggressive, excessive police tactics have also become troublingly commonplace, it is in large part due to judges who largely rubberstamp the warrant requests based only on the word of police; police who have been known to lie or fabricate the facts in order to justify their claims of “reasonable suspicion” (as opposed to the higher standard of probable cause, which is required by the Constitution before any government official can search an individual or his property); and software that allows judges to remotely approve requests using computers, cellphones or tablets.

This sorry state of affairs is made even worse by U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have essentially done away with the need for a “no-knock” warrant altogether, giving the police authority to disregard the protections afforded American citizens by the Fourth Amendment.

In addition to the terror brought on by these raids, general incompetence, collateral damage (fatalities, property damage, etc.) and botched raids are also characteristic of these SWAT team raids. In some cases, officers misread the address on the warrant. In others, they simply barge into the wrong house or even the wrong building. In another subset of cases, police conduct a search of a building where the suspect no longer resides.

SWAT teams have even on occasion conducted multiple, sequential raids on wrong addresses or executed search warrants despite the fact that the suspect is already in police custody. Police have also raided homes on the basis of mistaking the presence or scent of legal substances for drugs. Incredibly, these substances have included tomatoes, sunflowers, fish, elderberry bushes, kenaf plants, hibiscus, and ragweed.

All too often, botched SWAT team raids have resulted in one tragedy after another for the residents with little consequences for law enforcement.

The horror stories have become legion in which homeowners are injured or killed simply because they mistook a SWAT team raid by police for a home invasion by criminals. Too often, the destruction of life and property wrought by the police is no less horrifying than that carried out by criminal invaders.

As one might expect, judges tend to afford extreme levels of deference to police officers who have mistakenly killed innocent civilians but do not afford similar leniency to civilians who have injured police officers in acts of self-defense. Indeed, homeowners who mistake officers for robbers can be sentenced for assault or murder if they take defensive actions resulting in harm to police.

Yet the shock-and-awe tactics utilized by many SWAT teams only increases the likelihood that someone will get hurt.

That’s exactly what happened to Jose Guerena, the young ex-Marine who was killed after a SWAT team kicked open the door of his Arizona home during a drug raid and opened fire. According to news reports, Guerena, 26 years old and the father of two young children, grabbed a gun in response to the forced invasion but never fired. In fact, the safety was still on his gun when he was killed. Police officers were not as restrained. The young Iraqi war veteran was allegedly fired upon 71 times. Guerena had no prior criminal record, and the police found nothing illegal in his home.

Aiyana Jones is dead because of a SWAT raid gone awry. The 7-year-old was killed after a Detroit SWAT team—searching for a suspect—launched a flash-bang grenade into her family’s apartment, broke through the door and opened fire, hitting the little girl who was asleep on the living room couch. The cops weren’t even in the right apartment.

Exhibiting a similar lack of basic concern for public safety, a Georgia SWAT team launched a flash-bang grenade into the house in which Baby Bou Bou, his three sisters and his parents were staying. The grenade landed in the 2-year-old’s crib, burning a hole in his chest and leaving him with scarring that a lifetime of surgeries will not be able to easily undo.

Payton, a 7-year-old black Labrador retriever, and 4-year-old Chase, also a black Lab, were shot and killed after a SWAT team mistakenly raided the mayor’s home while searching for drugs. Police shot Payton four times. Chase was shot twice, once from behind as he ran away.

“My government blew through my doors and killed my dogs. They thought we were drug dealers, and we were treated as such. I don’t think they really ever considered that we weren’t,” recalls Mayor Cheye Calvo, who described being handcuffed and interrogated for hours—wearing only underwear and socks—surrounded by the dogs’ carcasses and pools of the dogs’ blood.

If these violent SWAT team raids have become tragically widespread, you can chalk it up to the “make-work” principle that has been used to justify the transfer of sophisticated military equipment, weaponry and training to local police departments, which in turn has helped to transform police into extensions of the military—a standing army on American soil.

The problem, as one reporter rightly concluded, is “not that life has gotten that much more dangerous, it’s that authorities have chosen to respond to even innocent situations as if they were in a warzone.”

A study by a political scientist at Princeton University concludes that militarizing police and SWAT teams “provide no detectable benefits in terms of officer safety or violent crime reduction.” The study, the first systematic analysis on the use and consequences of militarized force, reveals that “police militarization neither reduces rates of violent crime nor changes the number of officers assaulted or killed.”

SWAT teams, designed to defuse dangerous situations such as those involving hostages, were never meant to be used for routine police work targeting nonviolent suspects, yet they have become intrinsic parts of federal and local law enforcement operations.

There are few communities without a SWAT team today.

In 1980, there were roughly 3,000 SWAT team-style raids in the US.

Incredibly, that number has since grown to more than 80,000 SWAT team raids per year.

Where this becomes a problem of life and death for Americans is when these militarized SWAT teams are assigned to carry out routine law enforcement tasks.

In the state of Maryland alone, 92 percent of 8200 SWAT missions were used to execute search or arrest warrants.

Police in both Baltimore and Dallas have used SWAT teams to bust up poker games.

A Connecticut SWAT team swarmed a bar suspected of serving alcohol to underage individuals.

In Arizona, a SWAT team was used to break up an alleged cockfighting ring.

An Atlanta SWAT team raided a music studio, allegedly out of a concern that it might have been involved in illegal music piracy.

A Minnesota SWAT team raided the wrong house in the middle of the night, handcuffed the three young children, held the mother on the floor at gunpoint, shot the family dog, and then “forced the handcuffed children to sit next to the carcass of their dead pet and bloody pet for more than an hour” while they searched the home.

A California SWAT team drove an armored Lenco Bearcat into Roger Serrato’s yard, surrounded his home with paramilitary troops wearing face masks, threw a fire-starting flashbang grenade into the house in order, then when Serrato appeared at a window, unarmed and wearing only his shorts, held him at bay with rifles. Serrato died of asphyxiation from being trapped in the flame-filled house. Incredibly, the father of four had done nothing wrong. The SWAT team had misidentified him as someone involved in a shooting.

And then there was the police officer who tripped and “accidentally” shot and killed Eurie Stamps, an unarmed grandfather of 12, who had been forced to lie facedown on the floor of his home at gunpoint while a SWAT team attempted to execute a search warrant against his stepson.

Equally outrageous was the four-hour SWAT team raid on a California high school, where students were locked down in classrooms, forced to urinate in overturned desks and generally terrorized by heavily armed, masked gunmen searching for possible weapons that were never found.

These incidents underscore a dangerous mindset in which the citizenry (often unarmed and defenseless) not only have less rights than militarized police, but also one in which the safety of the citizenry is treated as a lower priority than the safety of their police counterparts (who are armed to the hilt with an array of lethal and nonlethal weapons).

Likewise, our privacy, property and security are no longer safe from government intrusion.

Yet it wasn’t always this way.

There was a time in America when a person’s home was a sanctuary, safe and secure from the threat of invasion by government agents, who were held at bay by the dictates of the Fourth Amendment, which protects American citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures.

The Fourth Amendment, in turn, was added to the U.S. Constitution by colonists still smarting from the abuses they had been forced to endure while under British rule, among these home invasions by the military under the guise of “writs of assistance.” These writs gave British soldiers blanket authority to raid homes, damage property and wreak havoc for any reason whatsoever, without any expectation of probable cause.

To our detriment, we have come full circle to a time before the American Revolution when government agents—with the blessing of the courts—could force their way into a citizen’s home, with seemingly little concern for lives lost and property damaged in the process.

Rubber-stamped, court-issued warrants for no-knock SWAT team raids have become the modern-day equivalent of colonial-era writs of assistance.

Then again, we may be worse off today when one considers the extent to which courts have sanctioned the use of no-knock raids by police SWAT teams (occurring at a rate of more than 80,000 a year and growing); the arsenal of lethal weapons available to local police agencies; the ease with which courts now dispense search warrants based often on little more than a suspicion of wrongdoing; and the inability of police to distinguish between reasonable suspicion and the higher standard of probable cause.

This is exactly what we can expect more of as a result of President Biden’s commitment to expand law enforcement and so-called crime prevention at taxpayer expense.

Yet as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, no matter what the politicians insist to the contrary, militarized police armed with weapons of war who are empowered to carry out pre-dawn raids on our homes, shoot our pets, and terrorize our families are not making America any safer or freer.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president The Rutherford Institute. His books Battlefield America: The War on the American People and A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State are available at www.amazon.com. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

Featured image: Minneapolis police force entry moments before shooting Amir Locke. Minneapolis Police Department via AP

At no point since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, has humanity been closer to the unthinkable. All the safeguards of the Cold War era, which categorized the nuclear bomb as “a weapon of last resort”, have been scrapped.

Nuclear war is now upheld as a peace-making endeavour:  

“The sensible path to peace starts with the realization that peace can be secured only through strength. Nuclear weapons represent that strength. We must embrace it through funding and rhetoric.

We need new weapons and delivery systems, but, most important, we need a new strategy that recognizes the importance of nuclear weapons to a peaceful future.” (Washington Post, October 2013) 

“This presidential document states that nuclear weapons are the foundation of our strategy to preserve peace and stability by deterring aggression against the US, our allies, and our partners, (National Security Strategy of the United States of America)

The Doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) of the Cold War Era was scrapped and replaced with the Doctrine of Preemptive Nuclear War (PNW), namely the “peacemaking use” of nuclear weapons as a means of “self-defense” against both nuclear and non-nuclear weapons states.

One thing was replaced by its opposite. MAD is real, PNW is fake. There is no such thing as “a peace-making use” of nuclear weapons.

Analysis: The Dangers of Nuclear War: Michel Chossudovsky

Comments: Link to Odysee

 

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***

A renowned virologist and former senior officer of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently warned against the dangers of the experimental COVID-19 gene-transfer vaccines, encouraged the un-jabbed to “stay unvaccinated,” and predicted an inevitable “collapse of our health system” due to health complications in the vaccinated.

Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche, who once worked as a senior program manager for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) and has been considered one of the most talented vaccine creators in the world, issued a video “Message to Austria” on November 20 to coincide with a large rally in Vienna opposing new lockdown measures.

As a first priority, he advised the public, “Never, Ever — allow anything, or anybody, to interfere or suppress your innate immune system,” which is the first line of defense human beings have to fight off all infections.

According to Vanden Bossche, the “vaccine antibodies,” which are induced by the current COVID-19 vaccines, suppress innate immunity and they “cannot substitute for it” since they quickly wane in their effectiveness and cannot prevent infection or transmission of the virus.

Thus, these experimental injections, in contrast to innate immunity, “do not contribute to herd immunity,” he said.

Vaccinating children ‘an absolute no go!’

This reality is most important in the case of children whose “innate immunity can easily be suppressed by vaccinal antibodies” since their “antibodies are so young and so naïve that they can easily be outcompeted by vaccinal antibodies,” he said.

And since children are protected from many diseases by their innate immunity, including COVID-19, its suppression by these vaccines exposes them to many more dangers, and “could even lead to autoimmune diseases,” the expert warned.

Therefore, injecting children with these biological agents “is an absolute no go!” the virologist said. “We cannot vaccinate our children with these vaccines.”

Booster shots for the vaccinated ‘absolutely insane!’

Turning his attention to the adult “vaccinees,” those who have been vaccinated, the specialist in microbiology said the suppression of innate immunity has already shown itself to be a problem in this population. “They are indeed going to have a difficult time to control a number of diseases,” including COVID-19.

Yet, since their innate antibodies have previously been trained through years of adapting and maturing, he said “they are usually more resilient to the vaccinal antibodies” than those of children.

However, this resilience can be further deteriorated by additional shots, and thus Vanden Bossche warns that giving these jabbed individuals boosters “is absolutely insane! What this will do is just further increase the immune pressure of the vaccinal antibodies on their innate immunity.” Thus, booster shots are “absolute nonsense! It is dangerous and should not be done!”

To the un-jabbed: ‘For God’s sake, stay unvaccinated!’

As for the unvaccinated, the Belgian physician described why they would fare much better, first breaking them down into three categories:

1. Those who have experienced no symptoms, who are “most likely simply protected by their innate antibodies;” 
2. Those who have experienced mild symptoms, not having to stay in bed for any time; and
3. Those who recovered from the disease and may have even had a severe case of it.

Due to what he called the “high infectious pressure” of the Delta variant, the respective innate immunity systems of these unvaccinated may now have to struggle a bit more, and thus the first category may experience mild symptoms, the second, moderate, and the third may have “some higher susceptibility to some other diseases. For example, influenza or the common cold.”

“But very, very importantly, all are protected,” he said. “They all are still protected against severe disease and the majority of them will be protected against very mild or moderate disease.”

This is the case, especially, the virologist said, since COVID-19 “is not a disease of healthy people. People who are in good health have a healthy innate immune system that can deal with a number of respiratory viruses without any problem. These people are not only protected against the disease, but they can even in many cases prevent infection.”

Vaccinees ‘serving as a kind of breeding ground for the virus’

Therefore, in order to maintain their healthy innate immune system as protection against COVID-19 and many other diseases, Dr. Vanden Bossche offered the following three requirements to the unvaccinated:

1. “For God’s sake, stay unvaccinated! They should stay unvaccinated;”
2. “Take care of their innate immunity, meaning they should take care of their health … if you do this and you are unvaccinated, you will be spared from severe disease without any vaccine. On the contrary, the vaccine would do the opposite;” and
3.  Those with comorbidities or underlying diseases “should be careful about contacts.” 

For this third category of the more vulnerable, the physician said, “This is not to discriminate against the vaccinees, but [the un-jabbed] should especially avoid contact with vaccinees at this point in time.

“Vaccinees are now the people, and there is no doubt about this, who are really serving as a kind of breeding ground for the virus,” he said. “We need to have an extra protection for those who have underlying diseases. Do not vaccinate them, but in fact prevent them from being exposed to high infectious pressure.”

Health issues in the vaxxed ‘will inevitably lead to a collapse of our health system’

He encouraged his Austrian listeners that the only fight they have is “the fight for your health, [in] not getting vaccinated.” In accomplishing this, all of the other measures will not be sustainable.

Though he expressed great concern for “the vaccinees,” stating “we need to help them as much as we can because they will need extensive treatment in many cases,” he observed that the percentage of this group now being hospitalized “is now steadily increasing. Whereas more and more, with training of the innate immune system, with more exposure to the virus, more and more non-vaccinated people get protected.”

“This will lead inevitably — and I am not a doomsday preacher — but this will inevitably lead to a collapse of our health system. It cannot be otherwise,” he said.

‘Strength is found in serenity’

However, in closing, the virologist had a hopeful message, stating the lockdown measures “are not sustainable” and cannot last “for a long time.” He encouraged them to “stay calm,” sharing a German saying that translates, “Strength is found in serenity.”

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Featured image is from LifeSiteNews

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***

Implantable microchips are marketed as the ultimate in convenience, but the goal is to create the Internet of Bodies (IoB), described by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as an ecosystem of “an unprecedented number of sensors,” including emotional sensors, “attached to, implanted within, or ingested into human bodies to monitor, analyze and even modify human bodies and behavior”

Sweden is one of the earliest adopters of implantable microchips. The chip is implanted just beneath the skin on the hand, and operates using either near-field communication (NFC) — the same technology used in smartphones — or radio-frequency identification (RFID), which is used in contactless credit cards

Implanted payment chips are an extension of the internet of things; they’re a way of connecting and exchanging data, and the benefits must be weighed against the potential risks

Countries around the world are now working on a system for a central bank digital currency (CBDC), a fiat currency in digital form that is programmable so that you can only spend your money on certain things or in specific places, as desired by the issuer

In the end, everything will be connected to a single implantable device that will hold your digital identity, health data and programmable CBDCs. Your digital identity, in turn, will include everything that can be known about you through surveillance via implanted biosensors, your computer, smartphone, GPS, social media, online searches, purchases and spending habits. Algorithms will then decide what you can and cannot do based on who you are

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While implantable microchips are marketed as the ultimate in convenience, the goal of this trend goes far beyond allowing you to open doors without keys and buy things without your wallet.

The goal is to create what’s known as the Internet of Bodies (IoB), described by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as an ecosystem of “an unprecedented number of sensors,” including emotional sensors, “attached to, implanted within, or ingested into human bodies to monitor, analyze and even modify human bodies and behavior.”¹

Key words in that sentence that the PR machine skips right over is the stated goal to “modify human bodies and behavior.” And who will be in charge of those modifications? They don’t say, but we can safely assume that it will be those who have something to gain from the modification of your actions and behaviors.

Sweden Paves the Way for Microchipping

As noted in the featured NBC News segment, Sweden is one of the earliest adopters of implantable microchips. The chip, about the size of a grain of rice, is implanted just beneath the skin on the hand, and operates using either near-field communication (NFC) — the same technology used in smartphones — or radio-frequency identification (RFID), which is used in contactless credit cards.

Already, Sweden has become more or less a cashless society. Now, this tiny implant will replace the need for debit and credit cards all together, as well as identification and keys. To pay for an item, all you have to do is place your left hand near the contactless card reader, and the payment is registered.

An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Swedes have been chipped so far, although Swedish authorities claim they don’t know the exact number, as there’s no central registry.

At present, it’s claimed that the chips cannot be tracked, but that doesn’t mean they’ll remain untrackable in the future. And, while these early microchips contain only limited amounts of information, we know the WEF dreams of implementing a global digital identification system that would include everything imaginable about you, from your online search history and medical information to your personal banking data, social credit score and more.

Humans Are Becoming Hackable

As noted by financial technology expert Theodora Lau, implanted payment chips are “an extension of the internet of things;” they’re a way of connecting and exchanging data, and the benefits must be weighed against the potential risks.²

This is particularly true if and when more personal information begins to be migrated into them, leaving you vulnerable to hackers and surveillance. She told BBC News:³

“How much are we willing to pay, for the sake of convenience? Where do we draw the line when it comes to privacy and security? Who will be protecting the critical infrastructure, and the humans that are part of it?”

A PBS NewsHour segment from 2019⁴ also reviews some of the concerns surrounding implantable microchips (see video above). Importantly, just about any smartphone can read the chip with the proper scanner installed, and “anybody would be able to hack it,” according to Dr. Geoff Watson, a consultant anesthetist⁵ who has teamed up with the chip’s inventor “to ensure the implant procedure is carried out to a medical standard.”

While many say they have no privacy fears around the current microchips, it’s reasonable to suspect that privacy concerns will rise in tandem with the amount of personal information held on the chips, and with the number of people who have the implants.

Credit card theft was rare in the beginning and typically involved physical loss of the card. Today, you can’t seem to keep a credit card for more than a handful of years before it’s somehow stolen even though the card is still in your possession.

Identity theft is also rampant, and getting worse by the day, as millions of illegals in need of new identities flood across the southern border of the United States.

As noted by the Center for Immigration Studies, illegal immigrants are not “undocumented,” as most will obtain fraudulent documents through identity theft.⁶ In other words, they’re stealing the legal identities of Americans. In 2020, the total cost for identity theft and identity fraud was $56 billion — the highest in recorded history — and affected 39 million Americans.⁷

There’s no reason to believe theft and fraud won’t happen as microchipping becomes more commonplace. And that risk is in addition to the risks involved with government spying on and controlling both your behavior and spending once the microchips are connected to your personal finances and programmable digital currencies.

In a November 2019 interview with CNN,⁸ history professor and adviser to WEF founder Klaus Schwab, Yuval Noah Harari, warned that “humans are now hackable animals,” meaning, the technology exists by which a company or government can know you better than you know yourself, and that can be very dangerous if misused.

He predicted that algorithms will increasingly be used to make decisions that historically have been made by humans, either yourself or someone else, including whether or not you’ll be hired for a particular job, whether you’ll be granted a loan, what scholastic curriculum you will follow and even who you will marry.

The Plan to Control the ‘Useless Masses’

1/ Klaus Schwab’s top advisor says advancements in technology will render people useless and worthless. ➡️They’ll need drugs and computer games to cope. https://t.co/dq6HfqQ0Be
https://t.co/dq6HfqQ0Be

— Gigi Sims (@GigiSims10) April 11, 2022

In another interview, Harari discussed what Schwab refers to as The Fourth Industrial Revolution (read: transhumanism), noting that we’re now learning to “produce bodies and minds” (meaning augmented bodies, and cloud and artificial intelligence-connected minds) and that one of the greatest challenges we face will be what to do with all the people that have become obsolete in the process.

How will unaugmented people find meaning in life when they’re basically “useless, meaningless”? How will they spend their time when there’s no work, no opportunity to move up in some kind of profession? His guess is that the answer will be “a combination of drugs and computer games.” I’ll let you decide if that’s a vision of utopia or hell on earth.

Nothing Will Be Private — Not Even Your Bodily Functions

The WEF’s plan for the IoB even includes biosensors that measure and monitor your biological functioning and emotional states. Already, the U.S. Pentagon and Profusa Inc. have collaborated on the development of a tiny implantable biosensor that detects disease by tracking chemical reactions inside your body.⁹

For example, it would be able to determine whether you’ve been infected with a virus like SARS-CoV-2 or influenza long before any symptoms emerge. As explained by Defense One, the biosensor consists of two parts:¹⁰

“One is a 3mm string of hydrogel, a material whose network of polymer chains is used in some contact lenses and other implants. Inserted under the skin with a syringe, the string includes a specially engineered molecule that sends a fluorescent signal outside of the body when the body begins to fight an infection.

The other part is an electronic component attached to the skin. It sends light through the skin, detects the fluorescent signal and generates another signal that the wearer can send to a doctor, website, etc. It’s like a blood lab on the skin that can pick up the body’s response to illness before the presence of other symptoms, like coughing.”

Now, the sensor allows a person’s biology to be examined at a distance via smartphone connectivity, and Profusa is backed by Google, the largest data mining company in the world.

Knowing that, it’s hard to imagine that your biological data won’t be used to boost Google’s profits and increase government control. While Profusa was expecting to receive approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2021, it doesn’t appear to have been approved yet.

Other Monitoring and Tracking Devices in the Pipeline

Another invention that stands poised to track your health is biocompatible near-infrared quantum dot microneedle arrays. As explained in a 2019 Science Translational Medicine article,¹¹ this novel vaccine delivery system is able to “deliver patterns of near-infrared light-emitting microparticles to the skin” that can then be “imaged using modified smartphones.” In short, it would serve as an invisible tattoo of your vaccination record.

Bill Gates has also funded the development of a birth control microchip that can be turned on and off by remote control. The National Post writes:¹²

“The birth control microchip … would hold nearly two decades worth of a hormone commonly used in contraceptives and dispense 30 micrograms a day … The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has given more than $4.5 million to MicroCHIPS, Inc., to ‘develop personal system that enables women to regulate their fertility’ …”

In November 2019, Daré Bioscience, a San Diego-based biopharma company, announced¹³ it had reached an agreement to acquire MicroCHIPS Biotech and would be adding the birth control microchip to its portfolio. Interestingly, back in 2014, MicroCHIPS appeared confident it would be able to get the product to market in 2018, but as of 2022, it’s still in development.

Programmable Digital Currencies Are Next

Countries around the world are now working on a system for a central bank digital currency (CBDC), a fiat currency in digital form that is programmable so that you can only spend your money on certain things or in specific places, as desired by the issuer.

In the video above, WhatsHerFace comments on Canada’s 2021 announcement of its plan for a CBDC that will be universally accessible, even if you don’t have a bank account or a cell phone. What kind of device might fulfill that? An implanted microchip, of course, that has your digital identity and digital wallet on it.

In 2007, American business man and film producer Aaron Russo told “Infowars” that the goal of the New World Order was to create “a one world government, where everybody has an RFID chip implanted in them, and all money is to be in those chips.”

“There will be no more cash, and this [information] was given to me straight from Rockefeller himself,” Russo said. “So, they can take out any money they want, any time they want. They say, ‘You owe us this much in taxes,’ and they just take it out of your chip. Total control. And … if you’re protesting against what they’re doing, they’ll turn off your chip and you have nothing … It’s total control of the people.”

Fast-forward to April 2022, and Canada is now permanently enshrining its government-imposed sanctions against protesters in its new budget.¹⁴ As you may recall, the Canadian government shut down the bank accounts of participants in the trucker protest against vaccine mandates, and even those who donated as little as $25 to the protest.

Crowdfunding platforms will now be more tightly regulated, and the government is also launching a legislative review of cryptocurrencies. Just imagine the control the Canadian government would have had with a programmable CBDC. They could have prevented the donations from occurring at all, and shut down the account of anyone who even tried to give a few dollars to the freedom movement.

A Carefully Crafted Plan for World Domination?

All of this is happening at the same time that the World Health Organization, another deep state technocrat stronghold, is building a global vaccine passport system.¹⁵ Once CBDCs and a global vaccine passport system are up and running, it won’t be long before they’re combined into one — likely in the form of an implantable microchip.

We can predict this because they’ve told us that this is the plan. Just look through the WEF’s website descriptions of The Great Reset¹⁶ and Fourth Industrial Revolution.¹⁷

Read the Rockefeller Foundation’s April 2020 white paper,¹⁸ “National COVID-19 Testing Action Plan — Strategic Steps to Reopen Our Workplaces and Our Communities,” which spells out the direction of social control through the implementation of permanent COVID-19 tracking and tracing measures.

Look into the ID2020 Alliance,¹⁹ a public-private partnership founded by Bill Gates’ GAVI, The Vaccine Alliance, The Rockefeller Foundation, Microsoft, Accenture and Ideo.org.²⁰ Members in the alliance include the Learning Economy Foundation,²¹ founded by the United Nations in 2018,²²Facebook, Mastercard, ShareRing, Simprints and others.²³

ID2020 began as a digital identity program for Bangladesh, and has since expanded to include “the implementation of digital technologies which tie with the [Learning Economy] Foundation’s vision of a world in which learners can map their educational progress to achieve their academic, employment, and life goals.”²⁴

In the end, everything will be connected to a single implantable device. Right now, it’s a tossup as to whether a vaccine passport or a digital identity platform will be the foundation for what’s to come, but what is certain is that whatever it’s called, it will include your digital identity, vaccination status and other health data, and programmable CBDCs.

Your digital identity, in turn, will include everything else that can be known about you through surveillance via implanted biosensors, your computer, smartphone, GPS, social media, online searches, purchases and spending habits. Imagine having an AI listening, watching and scoring every move you make and every heartbeat, and algorithms deciding what you can and cannot do based on your behavior, expression, social contacts and personal views.

Add to that technologies that can modify your behavior and emotional state with or without your knowledge, which is what the WEF’s 2020 briefing document on the IoB describes.²⁵ It may sound like science fiction, but this is what they intend to do. Every new technology, every new surveillance opportunity they bring forward is to further this aim.

For decades, we’ve embraced technologies with our mind set on convenience and/or safety. That’s always how they rope us in. But we will lose everything worth living for if we continue down this path without foolproof privacy safeguards and personal autonomy rights in place.

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Notes

^1, 25 WEF, Shaping the Future of the Internet of Bodies, July 2020

^2, 3 BBC April 11, 2022

⁴ PBS January 30, 2019

⁵ New York Post August 3, 2017

⁶ Center for Immigration Studies June 19, 2009

⁷ Privacy Bee How Much Does Identity Theft Cost?

⁸ CNN November 26, 2019

^9, 10 Defense One March 3, 2020

¹¹ Science Translational Medicine December 18, 2019; 11(523)

¹² National Post January 24, 2015

¹³ Xconomy.com November 15, 2019

¹⁴ Reclaim the Net April 9, 2022

¹⁵ The Counter Signal April 11, 2022

¹⁶ WEF Great Reset

¹⁷ WEF Fourth Industrial Revolution

¹⁸ The Rockefeller Foundation, National COVID-19 Testing Action Plan — Strategic Steps to Reopen Our Workplaces and Our Communities, April 21, 2020 (PDF)

¹⁹ Biometric Update September 20, 2019

²⁰ ID2020 Founding Partners

^21, 22 Gavi.org, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

²³ ID2020 General Partners

²⁴ Biometric Update August 5, 2021

Featured image is from Vaccines.news

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Karen DeYoung reported for the Washington Post Thursday that Russia sent a formal diplomatic note to the United States on Tuesday, accusing Washington and its NATO clients of insidiously subverting the peace process with Ukraine initiated at the Istanbul talks on March 29, and the subsequent withdrawal of Russian forces from the outskirts of Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy, thus ending the month-long offensive in Ukraine.

The document, titled “On Russia’s concerns in the context of massive supplies of weapons and military equipment to the Kiev regime,” was forwarded to the State Department by the Russian Embassy in Washington, in which Russia accused NATO of trying to “pressure Ukraine to abandon peace negotiations with Russia in order to continue the bloodshed.”

Moscow also warned Washington that US and NATO shipments of the “most sensitive” weapons systems to Ukraine were “adding fuel” to the conflict and could bring “unpredictable consequences.” Russia experts suggested Moscow, which had labeled weapons convoys coming into the country as legitimate military targets but had not thus far attacked them, might be preparing to do so.

“They have targeted supply depots in Ukraine itself, where some of these supplies have been stored,” George Beebe, former director of Russia analysis at the CIA and Russia adviser to former vice president Dick Cheney, told the news outlet.

“The real question is do they go beyond attempting to target the weapons on Ukrainian territory, try to hit the supply convoys themselves and perhaps the NATO countries on the Ukrainian periphery” that serve as transfer points for the US supplies.

If Russian forces stumble in the next phase of the war as they did in the first,

“then I think the chances that Russia targets NATO supplies on NATO territory go up considerably,” Beebe said. “There has been an assumption on the part of a lot of us in the West that we could supply the Ukrainians really without limits and not bear significant risk of retaliation from Russia,” he said. “I think the Russians want to send a message here that that’s not true.”

Among the items Russia identified as “most sensitive” were “multiple-launch rocket systems,” such as Slovakia’s illicit deal with NATO for transferring its Soviet-era S-300 air defense system to Ukraine in return for the transatlantic military alliance delivering four Patriot missile systems to Slovakia, and the Soviet-era Strela-10, SA-8, SA-10, SA-12, SA-13 and SA-14 mobile air defense systems, with range higher than Stingers and having capability to hit cruise missiles, and myriads of other advanced multiple rocket launchers, that NATO covertly provided to Ukraine.

The Czech Republic had delivered tanks, multiple rocket launchers, howitzers and infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine among military shipments that had reached hundreds of millions of dollars and would continue, two Czech defense sources confided to Reuters.

Defense sources confirmed a shipment of five T-72 tanks and five BVP-1, or BMP-1, infantry fighting vehicles seen on rail cars in photographs on Twitter and video footage last week. “For several weeks, we have been supplying heavy ground equipment – I am saying it generally but by definition it is clear that this includes tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, howitzers and multiple rocket launchers,” a senior defense official said.

“What has gone from the Czech Republic is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.” The senior defense official said the Czechs were also supplying “a range of anti-aircraft weaponry.” Independent defense analyst Lukas Visingr said “short-range air-defense systems Strela-10, or SA-13 Gopher in NATO terminology, had been spotted on a train apparently bound for Ukraine.”

Russia accused the Western powers of violating “rigorous principles” governing the transfer of weapons to conflict zones, and of being oblivious to “the threat of high-precision weapons falling into the hands of radical nationalists, extremists and bandit forces in Ukraine.”

Washington, the diplomatic demarche said, was pressuring other countries to stop any military and technical cooperation with Russia, and those with Soviet-era weapons to transfer them to Ukraine. “We call on the United States and its allies to stop the irresponsible militarization of Ukraine, which implies unpredictable consequences for regional and international security,” the note added.

Russia’s “paranoid attitude” accusing Washington and its NATO clients of scuttling the peace process with Ukraine and orchestrating a proxy war on Russia’s vulnerable western flank by funding, training, arming and internationally legitimizing Ukraine’s ultra-nationalist militias in order to destabilize and provoke Russia aside, in the spirit of apparent “reconciliation and multilateralism” defining the Biden administration’s approach to conducting international diplomacy, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken handed over the “power of attorney” to the Ukrainian leadership to reach a negotiated settlement with Russia without any pressure, whatsoever, from Washington to escalate hostilities with its arch-rival.

On April 3, confirming in an NBC News interview that Ukrainian President Zelensky had Washington’s full confidence to reach a peaceful settlement with Russia, Blinken, while assuming the air of “magnanimity and rapprochement,” revealed that President Joe Biden’s administration would support whatever the Ukrainian people wanted to do to bring the war to an end.

“We’ll be looking to see what Ukraine is doing and what it wants to do,” Blinken said. “And if it concludes that it can bring this war to an end, stop the death and destruction and continue to assert its independence and its sovereignty – and ultimately that requires the lifting of sanctions – of course, we will allow that.”

Blinken argued with overtones of diplomatic sophistry that although Putin had allegedly “failed to accomplish his objectives” in Ukraine – “subjugating Kyiv, demonstrating Russia’s military prowess and dividing NATO members” – he said it still made sense to pursue a negotiated settlement.

“Even though he’s been set back, even though I believe this is already a strategic defeat for Vladimir Putin, the death and destruction that he’s wreaking every single day in Ukraine … are terrible, and so there’s also a strong interest in bringing those to an end.”

Lending credence to ostensible “American neutrality” and “hands-off approach” to the Ukraine conflict, the Wall Street Journal published a misleading report on April 1 that German chancellor Olaf Scholz had offered Volodymyr Zelensky a chance for peace days before the launch of the Russian military offensive, but the Ukrainian president turned it down.

The newly elected German chancellor told Zelensky in Munich on February 19 “that Ukraine should renounce its NATO aspirations and declare neutrality as part of a wider European security deal between the West and Russia,” the Journal revealed. The newspaper also claimed that “the pact would be signed by Mr. Putin and Mr. Biden, who would jointly guarantee Ukraine’s security.”

However, Zelensky rejected the offer to make the concession and avoid confrontation, saying that

“Russian President Vladimir Putin couldn’t be trusted to uphold such an agreement and that most Ukrainians wanted to join NATO.”

While making the preposterous allegation that the hapless Ukrainian leadership vetoed NATO’s “flexible and conciliatory approach” to peacefully settle the dispute in order to absolve the transatlantic military alliance for its confrontational approach to Russia since the inception in 1949, the Journal report conveniently overlooked the crucial fact that last November, the US and Ukraine signed a Charter on Strategic Partnership.

The agreement unequivocally confirmed “Ukraine’s aspirations for joining NATO” and “rejected the Crimean decision to re-unify with Russia” following the 2014 Maidan coup. Then in December, Russia, in the last-ditch effort to peacefully resolve the dispute, proposed a peace treaty with the US and NATO.

The central Russian proposal was a written agreement assuring that Ukraine would not join the NATO military alliance and, in return, Russia would drawdown its troop buildup along Ukraine’s borders. When the proposed treaty was contemptuously rebuffed by Washington, it appeared the die was cast for Russia’s inevitable invasion of Ukraine.

Following the announcement of drawdown of Russian forces in Ukraine, specifically scaling back Russian offensive north of the capital, by the Russian delegation at the Istanbul peace initiative on March 29, the Ukrainian delegation, among other provisions, demanded “security guarantees in terms similar to Article 5 of the NATO charter,” the collective defense clause of the transatlantic military alliance.

CNN reported on April 1 that Western officials were taken aback by “the surprising Ukrainian proposal.”

“We are in constant discussion with Ukrainians about ways that we can help ensure that they are sovereign and secure,” White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said. “But there is nothing specific about security guarantees that I can speak to at this time.”

“Ukraine is not a NATO member,” Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab told the BBC when asked whether the UK is prepared to become a guarantor of Ukrainian independence. “We’re not going to engage Russia in direct military confrontation,” he added.

While noting that Russian peace negotiations were “nothing more than a smokescreen,” Western diplomats contended that an Article 5-type commitment to Ukraine was unlikely given that the US and many of its allies, including the UK, were not willing to put their troops in direct confrontation with Russian forces. The theory that Russia would not attack Ukraine if it had Western security guarantees appears to still be a bigger risk than the US and its allies are willing to take.

As a way for Russia to “save face in the negotiations,” the Ukrainians even went to the extent of suggesting that any such security guarantees would not apply to the separatist territories in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. However, a number of US and Western officials have taken a skeptical approach to potential security guarantees, with many saying it is still premature to discuss any contingencies as the negotiations proceed.

Contradicting the misleading reports hailing Ukraine’s political and military leadership as purported “masters of their own destinies,” President Joe Biden told the EU leaders at a summit last month in Brussels that “any notion that we are going to be out of this in a month is wrong”, and that the EU and NATO needed to prepare for “a long-term pressure campaign against Russia.”

US and European officials voiced skepticism over Russia’s “sincerity and commitment” towards the peace talks, underlining that only a full ceasefire, troop withdrawal and return of captured territory to Ukraine would be enough to trigger discussions over lifting sanctions on Russia’s economy.

“The notion that you would reward Putin for occupying territory doesn’t make sense … it would be very, very difficult to countenance” a senior EU official told the Financial Times. “There’s a disconnect between these negotiations, what really happens on the ground, and the total cynicism of Russia. I think we need to give them a reality check,” the official added.

Western countries were discussing both “enforcement of existing sanctions” and drawing up “potential additional measures” to increase pressure on Russian president Vladimir Putin, senior EU and US officials told the British newspaper. They were not discussing a possible timeframe for easing sanctions, they said.

Advising Ukrainians to hold out instead of rushing for securing peace deal with Russia, the Sunday Times reported, senior British officials were urging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to instruct his negotiators to refuse to make concessions during peace negotiations with Russian counterparts.

A senior government source said there were concerns that allies were “over-eager” to secure an early peace deal, adding that a settlement should be reached only when Ukraine is in the strongest possible position.

In a phone call and subsequently during a surprise visit to Kyiv, Boris Johnson warned President Zelensky that President Putin was a “liar and a bully” who would use talks to “wear you down and force you to make concessions.” The British prime minister also told MPs it was “certainly inconceivable that any sanctions could be taken off simply because there is a ceasefire.” London was making sure there was “no backsliding on sanctions by any of our friends and partners around the world,” he added.

Considering the backdrop of the Russo-Ukraine War that was deliberately orchestrated by NATO powers to insidiously destabilize and internationally isolate Russia, it stretches credulity that the powerless Ukrainian leadership “wields veto power” over NATO’s policy to reach a negotiated settlement with Russia.

Are readers gullible enough to assume the Ukrainian proposals for a peace treaty with Russia were put forth without prior consultation with NATO patrons and the latter cannot exercise enough leverage to compellingly persuade the impervious Ukrainian leadership to reach a peaceful settlement with Russia?

In conclusion, it’s obvious the credulous Ukrainian leadership’s insistence on seeking the EU membership amidst the war and demanding security guarantees in terms similar to Article 5 of the NATO charter instead of imploring for immediate ceasefire to save Ukrainian lives were clearly the deal-breaker stipulations that were deliberately inserted in the draft of Ukrainian proposals by perfidious NATO advisers to the naïve Ukrainian politicians in order to sabotage the peace negotiations with Russia.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national security analyst focused on geo-strategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the Middle East and Eurasia regions. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military-industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor of diligently researched investigative reports to Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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There has been so much bad news about the vaccines in the last few months, it even leaked into the mainstream media.  I think the cabal’s plan, at least in the US but probably everywhere, is to stop propping the ludicrous vaccine claims up and allow them to die a natural death. I explain why below.

There was just too much bad news, too few getting boosted, too much resistance from parents. Getting 8 or 10 doses into everyone was not going to happen.  The terrified obedient masses were becoming fewer and fewer.

For example, here is one story that got lots of traction: ABC News covered the fact that “At least 72 COVID cases in the fully vaccinated resulted from the Gridiron dinner.”  Not only did Nancy Pelosi test positive, but several other members of Biden’s Cabinet and many other Washingtonian glitterati did too.  All of whom had to have been vaccinated in order to attend.

There was plenty of happy talk that the afflicted politicians in DC had only mild COVID cases. Good for them. But, if vaccinations caused them to become asymptomatic spreaders instead of spreaders with symptoms, who would know to stay home while sick, the vaccines could actually be doing more harm than good in terms of transmission. They could be causing more COVID cases, not less.

By now, it has to be apparent to everyone who walks by a newsstand or turns on the TV that the media are begging much too hard for more shots.

It must be obvious to all that the shots do not prevent spread and therefore there is no logical way you can mandate them.  Because if my shot does not protect you (and only with lots of fairy dust will it protect me) why would you have any interest in whether or not I am vaccinated?

Once you stop caring about my vaccination status, the cabal’s nexus of control starts to fall apart. That was their ace in the hole. Time for them to move on to something else.

The kicker for childhood vaccines: the NY state Department of Health study of vaccine efficacy in children.  After 2 months, efficacy in the 5-11 year olds had fallen to 12%.

In other words, 7 out of 8 vaccinated kids derived no benefit after 2 months, only risk.  The data were derived from 365,000 children, and apparently there was no way CDC could spin them, or 12% was the best spin they could put on the data. This report is a huge obstacle to universal child vaccinations. They cabal cannot surmount it.

It is important to mention again–because we keep forgetting–that while the vaccines are nominally licensed for adults, in fact you can only find the EUA (unlicensed) product in the US, and legally an EUA is experimental–and therefore forcing someone to be vaccinated is a Nuremberg violation and a violation of federal law.

The imposition of mandates for these experimental gene therapy products is therefore a crime, being committed by states, federal government and certain companies and other institutions.  It seems that because US law was not designed for situations in which the government is the criminal, it has been very difficult to use the judicial system to change what is happening.  But surely if this persisted much longer an honest judge somewhere would finally rule that the vaccines are experimental and the COVID mandate house of cards would then collapse. Like Humpty Dumpty (it is Easter today after all):

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put COVID mandates together again

What else has been happening that undermines the vaccine story?  Well, in addition to all the collapsing athletes, there is now a large collection of mayors suddenly dropping dead throughout Germany.

In Australia, Queensland’s health minister just admitted that ambulances are being summoned for a lot more calls for cardiac events and sudden deaths:  40% more to be exact.  Thanks to Igor Chudov for following this story, and including a video of the clueless minister admitting it, but having no idea why…

Then there were the 3 insurance companies, one each from the US, India and Germany, that admitted there were about 40% more deaths than expected in working-age people in the second half of 2021.  The German official who blew the whistle, a CEO or VP, was immediately fired, which is a strong indication he was telling the truth.

Three doctor whistleblowers released a large cache of data from the military’s DMED database showing huge increases in service-member deaths.  There has been a lot of confusion about these data.  In part, that is because the military then reissued its data for the preceding several years, making the 2021 comparison look less dire.  Mathew Crawford has some ideas about what really happened to the data.  The only thing that is absolutely clear so far is that there has been a coverup, and the health of vaccinated members of the military appears to have taken a dive. But we don’t know how deep.

Everyone in the world must have heard the term ‘myocarditis’ by now, and knows that it is a vaccine injury.  A lot of people also know that CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said post-vaccination myocarditis was extremely “rare but mild,” except it isn’t and she lied. The rate of myocarditis she cited is at least 10 times too low.  About 1 in 2000 young men aged 18-24 sought care for this diagnosis after getting their second mRNA shot.

In fact, CDC was so intensely worried about blowback regarding its recommendation to vaccinate teens (despite the risk of myocarditis) it got the heads of about 20 professional medical organizations to sign on to a declaration supporting CDC’s recommendation.  Wonder how much CDC paid for that. Getting such back-up was an unusual move, but perhaps unsurprising for risk-averse bureaucrats who worry about their own butt but not anyone else’s. Rochelle even mentions these “cosigners” from many medical organizations in her ABC-TV interview.  Collecting a bunch of “co-signers” is actually the proof that CDC knew its vaccine recommendation was going to considerably harm children.

While no one in a federal health agency has admitted it, many people must be aware that myocarditis is only the tip of the COVID vaccine injury iceberg.  Myocarditis got attention because it’s life-threatening and almost always happens within 4 days of the second shot–it can’t be written off as coincidence, the way heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary emboli, sudden deaths and perhaps many other diagnoses have been.

As if there wasn’t enough bad vaccine news, there was information from the Medicare database that FDA posted last July, but it only recently got attention. FDA revealed that heart attacks, pulmonary emboli, disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC, a life-threatening, bleeding plus clotting disorder) and ITP (another bleeding disorder) were related to the Pfizer vaccination in Medicare beneficiaries.  FDA promised to study this rigorously, but instead remained silent, and subsequently has never denied the relationship.

And then there is ivermectin.  So many ivermectin stories have been leaking into the popular press.  Tennessee’s legislature made ivermectin essentially an over-the-counter drug last week.  New Hampshire’s house voted in favor of this as well, while the NH Senate is now taking it up.  Kansas and several other states gave healthcare providers an immunity guarantee for the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for COVID.  Kansas also strengthened religious exemptions, effectively undermining school vaccine mandates.

Coupled with stories about lawsuits against hospitals for refusing to supply ivermectin to dying relatives, like this one, people are finally realizing there is probably something to this drug, and they have been cheated.  They were given a shot that barely works, is unsafe, and they were stopped from getting the good drug.  And what if they lost their business to the lockdowns? There must be a lot of anger simmering by now.  I imagine the Great Reset cabal must be worried about this, and has decided to loosen its grip for the moment and hopefully let off some citizen steam.

There is more surprising vaccine news.  While many institutions are still imposing mandates (and we need to find out what $ carrots were given to universities and other entities to impose illegal mandates of experimental vaccines) in other, surprising places the mandates are disappearing.  Out west in Woke Land, the Washington state Department of Health said it would not require COVID vaccines to attend school after all.  Despite Gavin Newsom’s 2021 executive order mandating vaccines for school kids as soon as they are licensed, California’s Department of Health has just done the same thing that Washington’s did:  killed the COVID vaccine mandate for the 2022-23 school year.

Finally, Fauci himself and other media now openly admit the vaccines will not take us to herd immunity (no matter how many shots we get).

This is why I am convinced the ship is turning.  Those states’ health departments take their orders from CDC and DC.  I do not think FDA is going to be issuing any more fake licenses for COVID vaccines. [I say fake because a) the vaccines do not meet licensure criteria, and b) after issuing the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines licenses for adults, neither licensed product has been distributed in the US for actual use.]. The unvaxxed kids will be spared.  Hallelujah!

During the April 6, 2022 Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) meeting, which I live-blogged and summarized, both briefers and committee members acknowledged that the neutralizing antibody titers that have been used as a surrogate for immunity in order to issue EUAs, were in fact not valid surrogates.

This had been obvious for awhile, but a recent Israeli study in healthcare workers made it crystal clear.  While neutralizing antibody titers rose tenfold after a fourth vaccination, by 2 months out the Pfizer vaccine had only 30% efficacy against infection, and the Moderna vaccine had only 11%.  So the high antibody titers were, in fact, meaningless.

This is really important, because Pfizer and Moderna have been relying on titers to get their vaccines okayed for the younger age groups, those below 16 and 18 respectively.  They don’t have data showing the vaccines are actually reducing cases by 50% or more, which is the standard FDA said was necessary.  They don’t have data showing that the vaccines prevent serious cases or deaths, another standard.

Up until now, FDA accepted titers in lieu of actual efficacy results from clinical trials to issue its EUAs for children–but with the recent VRBPAC admissions, which must have been planned in advance (otherwise why did multiple people at the meeting discuss it as settled fact when they had never mentioned it before?) FDA can no longer do so.

Another thing that happened at the VRBPAC meeting was that Peter Marks, the head of FDA’s Center for Biologics and highest FDA official there, said that if a new type of COVID vaccine is developed for the next booster, then the current vaccines would no longer be used, because it would be too confusing (according to STAT).  I believe this was another effort to prepare us for the demise of the current mRNA vaccines.

The fall of the vaccines means the fall of the vaccine passports. This ought to slow down the imposition of CBDCs and all-digital money for a bit. If we don’t have to show our vaccine certificate to go shop, eat, etc., (and people stop being fearful of catching something from each Other) people will be a lot less inclined to “show their papers” to go about their lives. It’s our job to explain over and over that this was how the Nazis maintained control.

Here I read the tea leaves

If there is a new vaccine waiting in the wings, FDA and its briefers were not telling us about it at the VRBPAC meeting, which was the time to do so.  For right now, I think the current crop of vaccines and the vaccine passports are going away.  I don’t think the authorities anticipate another severe COVID wave in the foreseeable future…as most people now have Omicron immunity.  The COVID fear will dissipate.

The original Wuhan strain appeared out of nowhere. No natural progenitor could be found.  And the original Omicron strain appears to have also originated in a lab.  If I was a member of the Great Reset cabal, I would be quite hesitant about releasing yet a third lab-engineered virus on the population.  Because millions of people will be looking for one, and it won’t take long before its laboratory provenance is discovered.  Then the pitchforks might really come out.

On the other hand, I do believe the cabal has bet the farm on their Reset, they can’t go back, and they are simply moving on to another means of accomplishing it besides COVID.  The over-the-top WHO Treaty/Constitution and its amendments designed to assume sovereignty over the world in the event of a pandemic is an ambitious Plan B.

But I don’t think it will fly.  Too many people know the WHO was wrong about virtually everything regarding management of this pandemic, not to mention the 2009 swine flu.  And then there was that little matter of WHO undertaking the SOLIDARITY Trial, in which WHO officials deliberately poisoned over 1,000 COVID patients with excessive doses of hydroxychloroquine and in many cases failed to obtain signed informed consents. The WHO could be liable for manslaughter.

Will Russia and China really agree to give up their sovereignty to Tedros?  China, maybe.  Brazil?  India?  Indonesia?  Japan?  Nigeria? Can all of their leaders, and their local power centers, have been sufficiently corrupted to turn over their nations to the cabal?  I think that could be a stretch.

I suspect the cabal will try their best to get a legal OK to take over the world with the upcoming WHO pandemic treaty, but it won’t fly.  Too many people already know about these plans.

After the WHO, the cabal will move on to something else, Plan C.  Climate catastrophe?  Aliens?  I’m guessing it will be a few years before we get hit with another nasty bug.  By then maybe the fiat currencies will have finally crashed, and the cabal won’t have as tight control of the reins. By then, Fauci, Walensky, Biden, Macron, Johnson, Trudeau, Draghi will hopefully be unpleasant memories.

I am not thinking we will all sing kumbaya. I expect a good deal of misery as the cabal pushes all the levers at its disposal.

The Shanghai city and port closure (China’s largest city and the world’s largest port) seems to me a deliberate attempt to interfere with worldwide transit of goods and to reduce food availability. The Chinese know how to treat COVID. They make the drugs and herbs. There is no need for them to lock down.

We are finally understanding that all these awful government policies were deliberate — intended to cement control over and impoverish us. But maybe we can start to build something a whole lot better.

We are shaking loose of the educational indoctrination system, the ruination of our foods, the user-unfriendly and health-damaging healthcare system. We are starting to grasp that our governments acted with malice aforethought to stupefy and eventually enslave us.

People are breaking free and taking responsibility for their future. Where I live, people are learning self-sufficiency skills, creating home-schooling coops, building greenhouses and growing food. The migration to the countryside was deliberate.

A better life? It just takes everybody waking up. Despite all the acrimony we have faced, the time is ripe to help our fellows see things clearly. We have to love them, help them, meet them where they are. Maybe it is just to talk about the Gridiron dinner. Or ivermectin. They won’t get it in a day. But keep trying. It is our only solution.

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***

Decades of unsanctioned wars and foreign interference have proved devastating for Baghdad, as Iraq continues to struggle with political instability, economic collapse, and widespread social unrest.

When the city of Baghdad was founded by Abbasid Caliph Abu Jaafar al-Mansur in 762 CE, it was given the epithet of “Madinat ul-Salam” – in English, the City of Peace.

While it certainly experienced long periods of peace, such that it was able to contribute to the rise of the Islamic Golden Age during the reign of Harun al-Rashid in the 9th century, it was always a victim of its own success.

As the Islamic seat of power and learning, it attracted the avarice of marauders and invaders. Most notably, it was sacked by Mongol invaders led by Hulagu Khan in 1258 CE, who proceeded to destroy the famed House of Wisdom that was home to the likes of the 9th century’s polymath al-Kindi or his contemporary al-Khwarizmi, whose algorithms are now essential to all modern technology.

Of course, since the departure of the Mongols, Baghdad has been the focus of numerous conquests and reconquests by rival empires. It has been under the sway of the Ottomans, Seljuks, Safavids, the British Empire and, most recently, the United States as part of its destructive global War on Terror.

Since Baghdad was last subjected to a foreign invader in 2003, it has yet to rise again and continues to suffer the after-effects of an unsanctioned American-led war based on lies.

The lie of WMDs

It is an established part of the historical record that former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, possessed chemical and biological weapons. These weapons were openly used by his government during the war with Iran in the 1980s, with the Iraqis themselves also coming under Iranian chemical weapon attack.

However, it has since been established beyond all doubt that Iraq’s stockpiles of such weapons and its wider weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) programme had been decommissioned ever since Saddam’s forces were defeated and expelled from Kuwait following the US-led Operation Desert Storm in early 1991.

As part of the ensuing “peace”, Iraq had to submit itself to extensive United Nations weapons inspections which, as is now undeniable, succeeded in its mission of disarming Saddam’s regime.

Nevertheless, and in the hasty run-up to the war, the White House under George W. Bush and the British government under Tony Blair began a wholesale campaign of deceptions and exaggerations in an attempt to amp up the public’s fears of Iraqi WMD deployment against the West.

This was partially effective as large segments of the media parroted their governments’ line without question. On the other hand – and despite the very recent memory of 9/11 – it was wholly ineffective with the public themselves, leading to some of the biggest protests in global history, with three million descending on the streets of Rome alone, and one million people demonstrating in London.

Still, the cries of millions in the West went entirely unheard by their respective governments and a “coalition of the willing” was formed because the United States was unable to get their upcoming war on Iraq sanctioned by the United Nations, thereby breaching international law when US-and UK-led troops invaded Iraq in March 2003.

Iraqi brain drain

Conventional military operations against the Iraqi armed forces did not last long, and Baghdad itself came under a ferocious “shock and awe” aerial bombardment campaign before falling on 9 April – the latest in a long line of destructive conquests of the unfortunate city.

Image on the right: At the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to conduct a devastating aerial assault on Baghdad, known as “shock and awe.” (Source: Consortiumnews)

Very few things were spared, and very few living creatures emerged unscathed. Widespread looting of priceless cultural and historical artefacts took place – with US forces themselves often implicated – and this included the torching of the Iraqi National Library and National Archives, containing manuscripts that were millennia old and part of the cultural and intellectual heritage of humanity. Even animals were not spared, as hundreds of captive animals died of starvation at Baghdad Zoo.

But perhaps worse of all is that the ongoing nightmare of violence that was ushered in from the fall of Baghdad continues to this day.

In the immediate aftermath of the war, Iran-backed Shia militias – many of whom worked for the interior ministry that was under the control of the Badr Brigades – began a concerted campaign to specifically target Iraq’s intelligentsia for assassination.

Countless academics, scientists, engineers, and medical doctors were abducted and murdered. This led to such fear that many took their families and left their country, leading to an Iraqi brain drain.

This marked a dark hour for Iraqi academia as, despite the oppressive nature of the regime, Saddam’s Baathist government encouraged education and almost totally eradicated illiteracy by making refusal to learn to read, write, or learning numeracy a criminal offence.

Education was not only totally free, but it was also open to any citizen of any Arab League country as part of the Baathists’ pan-Arab nationalist agenda.

Now, however, Iraq’s education system is in dire straits. Not only are about one-fifth of the entire population illiterate, but UNICEF says that school enrolment rates are low and dropping, as children are forced out of education in order to work to support families that have lost their main breadwinners to the incessant internecine conflicts that have wracked Iraq since 2003.

Clearly, and considering Iraq’s rich intellectual heritage, such a state of affairs ought to be cause for not only national concern, but also international.

A lack of education is known to lead to greater social inequality, which increases poverty and also contributes to allowing radical organisations such as the Shia militias or the Islamic State (IS) group to easily recruit desperate people.

What’s next for Baghdad?

Although IS was declared defeated in 2017 and Iraq is technically at peace, the country’s problems cannot be limited to one extreme group alone.

Arguably, the main reason why Baghdad has failed to stagger to its feet once more after the destruction wrought upon it since 1990 and especially since 2003 is the state of the country’s wider political situation.

Iraq is under the sway of competing global powers, particularly the United States and Iran. However, Tehran has almost certainly won the tug-of-war for influence and control in Baghdad’s halls of power, with Iraq slowly drifting towards becoming a theocratic rump state at Iran’s beck and call.

Iran not only influences Iraqi politics, but habitually uses Iraqi territory to settle scores against its rivals. This has included firing salvos of rockets against US targets, engaging its militia proxies to assassinate dissident academics, and openly bombing targets in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, claiming to target Israeli interests.

Tehran successfully does all this while the Iraqi authorities do very little – a marked departure from relations between the two countries in the run-up to the Iran-Iraq War.

While the government may do very little, the Iraqi people themselves have held a series of protest movements, most recently one that began in 2019 that led to a brutal crackdown. More than 600 demonstrators calling for reforms and an end to foreign – especially Iranian – interference were killed by Iraqi security forces and allied Shia militias.

In all likelihood, and as Iraq’s economy continues to freefall despite windfall profits generated from fears of oil scarcity due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is almost certain that we will continue to see periodic protest movements. Even with economics aside, the politicised judiciary, sectarianism, and lack of accountability for corrupt officials will also provide fuel for demonstrations.

The more protesters see their peacefulness is being met with deadly violence and torture, the less peaceful these protests are likely to be.

In a country where IS managed to make it to Baghdad’s city limits in 2014, a large-scale, armed insurrection similar to that seen in other Arab Spring countries such as Syria will pose an existential threat to the state set up by the US in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion.

This could either lead to a popular revolt that overthrows decades of foreign interventionism, finally restoring Baghdad to its status as the City of Peace, or it could drown the city in blood as powers like Iran pour resources into the conflict to ensure they do not lose their most valuable imperial possession.

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While claiming to defend democracy, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has outlawed his opposition, ordered his rivals’ arrest, and presided over the disappearance and assassination of dissidents across the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has framed his country’s war against Russia as a battle for democracy itself. In a carefully choreographed address to US Congress on March 16, Zelensky stated, “Right now, the destiny of our country is being decided. The destiny of our people, whether Ukrainians will be free, whether they will be able to preserve their democracy.”

US corporate media has responded by showering Zelensky with fawning press, driving a campaign for his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize and inspiring a flamboyant musical tribute to himself and the Ukrainian military during the 2022 Grammy awards ceremony on April 3.

Western media has looked the other way, however, as Zelensky and top officials in his administration have sanctioned a campaign of kidnapping, torture, and assassination of local Ukrainian lawmakers accused of collaborating with Russia. Several mayors and other Ukrainian officials have been killed since the outbreak of war, many reportedly by Ukrainian state agents after engaging in de-escalation talks with Russia.

“There is one less traitor in Ukraine,” Internal Affairs Ministry advisor Anton Geraschenko stated in endorsement of the murder of a Ukrainian mayor accused of collaborating with Russia.

Zelensky has further exploited the atmosphere of war to outlaw an array of opposition parties and order the arrest of his leading rivals. His authoritarian decrees have triggered the disappearance, torture and even murder of an array of human rights activists, communist and leftist organizers, journalists and government officials accused of “pro-Russian” sympathies.

The Ukrainian SBU security services has served as the enforcement arm of the officially authorized campaign of repression. With training from the CIA and close coordination with Ukraine’s state-backed neo-Nazi paramilitaries, the SBU has spent the past weeks filling its vast archipelago of torture dungeons with political dissidents.

On the battlefield, meanwhile, the Ukrainian military has engaged in a series of atrocities against captured Russian troops and proudly exhibited its sadistic acts on social media. Here too, the perpetrators of human rights abuses appear to have received approval from the upper echelons of Ukrainian leadership.

While Zelensky spouts bromides about the defense of democracy before worshipful Western audiences, he is using the war as a theater for enacting a blood-drenched purge of political rivals, dissidents and critics.

“The war is being used to kidnap, imprison and even kill opposition members who express themselves critical of the government,” a left-wing activist beaten and persecuted by Ukraine’s security services commented this April. “We must all fear for our freedom and our lives.”

Torture and enforced disappearances “common practices” of Ukraine’s SBU

When a US-backed government seized power in Kiev following the Euromaidan regime change operation of 2013-14, Ukraine’s government embarked on a nationwide purge of political elements deemed pro-Russian or insufficiently nationalistic. The passage of “decommunization” laws by the Ukrainian parliament further eased the persecution of leftist elements and the prosecution of activists for political speech.

The post-Maidan regime has focused its wrath on Ukrainians who have advocated a peace settlement with pro-Russian separatists in the country’s east, those who have documented human rights abuses by the Ukrainian military, and members of communist organizations. Dissident elements have faced the constant threat of ultra-nationalist violence, imprisonment, and even murder.

The Ukrainian security service known as the SBU has served as the main enforcer of the post-Maidan government’s campaign of domestic political repression. Pro-Western monitors including the United Nations Office of the High Commission (UN OHCR) and Human Rights Watch have accused the SBU of systematically torturing political opponents and Ukrainian dissidents with near-total impunity.

The UN OHCR found in 2016 that “arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment of such conflict-related detainees were common practice of SBU… A former Kharkiv SBU officer explained, ‘For the SBU, the law virtually does not exist as everything that is illegal can be either classified or explained by referring to state necessity.”

Yevhen Karas, the founder of the infamous neo-Nazi C14 unit, has detailed the close relationship his gang and other extreme right factions have enjoyed with the SBU. The SBU “informs not only us, but also Azov, the Right Sector, and so on,” Karas boasted in a 2017 interview.

Kiev officially endorses assassinating Ukrainian mayors for negotiating with Russia

Since Russia launched its military operation inside Ukraine, the SBU has hunted down local officials that decided to accept humanitarian supplies from Russia or negotiated with Russian forces to arrange corridors for civilian evacuations.

On March 1, for example, Volodymyr Strok, the mayor of the eastern city of Kreminna in the Ukrainian-controlled side of Lugansk, was kidnapped by men in military uniform, according to his wife, and shot in the heart.

On March 3, pictures of Strok’s visibly tortured body appeared. A day before his murder, Struk had reportedly urged his Ukrainian colleagues to negotiate with pro-Russian officials.

Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, celebrated the mayor’s murder, declaring on his Telegram page (see below): “There is one less traitor in Ukraine. The mayor of Kreminna in Luhansk region, former deputy of Luhansk parliament was found killed.”

According to Geraschenko, Strok had been judged by the “court of the people’s tribunal.”

Telegram post by Anton Gerashchenko, advisor to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, celebrating the assassination of “traitor” and Kreminna Mayor Volodymyr Struk

The Ukrainian official therefore delivered a chilling message to anyone choosing to seek cooperation with Russia: do so and lose your life.

On March 7, the mayor of Gostomel, Yuri Prylipko, was found murdered. Prylipko had reportedly entered into negotiations with the Russian military to organize a humanitarian corridor for the evacuation of his city’s residents – a red line for Ukrainian ultra-nationalists who had long been in conflict with the mayor’s office.

Next, on March 24, Gennady Matsegora, the mayor of Kupyansk in northeastern Ukraine, released a video (below) appealing to President Volodymyr Zelensky and his administration for the release of his daughter, who had been held hostage by agents of the Ukrainian SBU intelligence agency.

Then there was the murder of Denis Kireev, a top member of the Ukrainian negotiating team, who was killed in broad daylight in Kiev after the first round of talks with Russia. Kireev was subsequently accused in local Ukrainian media of “treason.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s statement that “there would be consequences for collaborators” indicates that these atrocities have been sanctioned by the highest levels of government.

As of today, eleven mayors from various towns in Ukraine are missing. Western media outlets have been following the Kiev line without exception, claiming that all mayors been arrested by the Russian military. The Russian Ministry of Defense has denied the charge, however, and little evidence exists to corroborate Kiev’s line about the missing mayors.

Zelensky outlaws political opposition, authorizes arrest of rivals and war propaganda blitz

When war erupted with Russia this February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a series of decrees formalizing Kiev’s campaign against political opposition and dissident speech.

In a March 19 executive order, Zelensky invoked martial law to ban 11 opposition parties. The outlawed parties consisted of the entire left-wing, socialist or anti-NATO spectrum in Ukraine. They included the For Life Party, the Left Opposition, the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, the Socialist Party of Ukraine, Union of Left Forces, Socialists, the Party of Shariy, Ours, State, Opposition Bloc and the Volodymyr Saldo Bloc.

Openly fascist and pro-Nazi parties like the Azov National Corps were left untouched by the presidential decree, however.

“The activities of those politicians aimed at division or collusion will not succeed, but will receive a harsh response,” President Zelensky stated.

As he wiped out his opposition, Zelensky ordered an unprecedented domestic propaganda initiative to nationalize all television news broadcasting and combine all channels into a single 24 hour channel called “United News” to “tell the truth about war.”

Next, on April 12, Zelensky announced the arrest of his principal political rival, Viktor Medvedchuk, by Ukraine’s SBU security services.

Medvedchuk’s face is clearly bruised, apparently a result of beatings from Zelensky’s SBU goons. Don’t expect any questions about this image to appear in the pages of the NYT or in CNN’s 24 hour media circus. Can’t allow anything to undermine the pro-war narrative. pic.twitter.com/A0qhhmeaj8

— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) April 12, 2022

The founder of the second largest party in Ukraine, the now-illegal Patriots for Life, Medvedchuk is the de facto representative of the country’s ethnic Russian population. Though Patriots for Life is regarded as “pro-Russia,” in part because of his close relations with Vladimir Putin, the new chairman of the party has condemned Russia’s “aggression” against Ukraine.

Members of the state-sponsored neo-Nazi Azov Battalion’s National Corps attacked Medvedchuk’s home in March 2019, accusing him of treason and demanding his arrest.

In August 2020, Azov’s National Corps opened fire on a bus carrying representatives of Medvedchuk’s party, wounding several with rubber-coated steel bullets.

Zelensky’s administration escalated the assault on his top opponent in February 2021 when he shuttered several media outlets controlled by Medvedchuk. The US State Department openly endorsed the president’s move, declaring that the United States “supports Ukrainian efforts to counter Russia’s malign influence…”

Three months later, Kiev jailed Medvedchuk and charged him with treason. Zelensky justified locking away his leading rival on the grounds that he needed to “fight against the danger of Russian aggression in the information arena.”

Medvedchuk escaped house arrest at the onset of the war between Russia and Ukraine, but is a captive once again, and may be used as collateral for a post-war prisoner swap with Russia.

Under Zelensky’s watch, “the war is being used to kidnap, imprison and even kill opposition members”

Since Russian troops entered Ukraine on February 24, Ukraine’s SBU security service had been on a rampage against any and all iterations of internal political opposition. Leftist Ukrainian activists have faced particularly harsh treatment, including kidnapping and torture.

This March 3 in the city of Dnipro, SBU officers accompanied by Azov ultra-nationalists raided the home of activists with the Livizja (Left) organization, which has organized against social spending cuts and right-wing media propaganda. While one activist said the Azov member “cut my hair off with a knife,” the state security agents proceeded to torture her husband, Alexander Matjuschenko, pressing a gun barrel to his head and forcing him to repeatedly belt out the nationalist salute, “Slava Ukraini!”

“Then they put bags over our heads, tied our hands with tape and took us to the SBU building in a car. There they continued to interrogate us and threatened to cut off our ears,” Matjuschenko’s wife told the leftist German publication Junge Welt.

The Azov members and SBU agents recorded the torture session and published images of Matjuschenko’s bloodied face online.

The torture of left-wing activist Alexander Matjuschenko on March 3 in Dnipro, recorded by Azov members and posted on Telegram by the city of Dnipro

Matjuschenko was jailed on the grounds that he was “conducting an aggressive war or military operation,” and now faces 10 to 15 years in prison. Despite enduring several broken ribs from the beating by state-backed ultra-nationalists, he has been denied bail. Meanwhile, dozens of other leftists have been jailed on similar charges in Dnipro.

Among those targeted by the SBU were Mikhail and Aleksander Kononovich, members of the outlawed Leninist Communist Youth Union of Ukraine. Both were arrested and jailed on March 6 and accused of “spreading pro-Russian and pro-Belarusian views.”

In the following days, the SBU arrested broadcast journalist Yan Taksyur and charged him with treason; human rights activist Elena Berezhnaya; Elena Viacheslavova, a human rights advocate whose father, Mikhail, was burned to death during the May 2, 2014 ultra-nationalist mob attack on anti-Maidan protesters outside the Odessa House of Trade Unions; independent journalist Yuri Tkachev, who was charged with treason, and an untold number of others; disabled rights activist Oleg Novikov, who was jailed for three years this April on the grounds that he supported “separatism.”

The list of those imprisoned by Ukraine’s security services since the outbreak of war grows by the day, and is too extensive to reproduce here.

Oleg Novikov—opposition activist from my city, Kharkov, persecuted in the past by the Zelensky regime—was kidnapped 5/04/22 at 6am by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and taken to an unknown place. Oleg is disabled and has 3 young children. (Pic is from a previous arrest) pic.twitter.com/KSeHYC7DWJ

— Gonzalo Lira (@realGonzaloLira) April 9, 2022

Perhaps the most ghastly incident of repression took place when neo-Nazis backed by the Ukrainian government kidnapped Maxim Ryndovskiy, a professional MMA fighter, and brutally tortured him for the crime of training with Russian fighters at a gym in Chechnya. Ryndovskiy also happened to be Jewish, with a Star of David tattooed on his leg, and had spoken out on social media against the war in eastern Ukraine.

In Kyiv, local [I don’t know to fucking call them] extremists caught and brutally torture a famous Ukrainian athlete, MMA fighter, Maxim Ryndovsky. All his fault is that he trained with the Chechen club "Akhmat". pic.twitter.com/og1Psly7SE

— Maria Dubovikova (@politblogme) March 5, 2022

Ukraine’s SBU has even hunted opposition figures outside the country’s borders. As journalist Dan Cohen reported, Anatoly Shariy of the recently banned Party of Shariy said he was the target of a recent SBU assassination attempt. Shariy has been an outspoken opponent of the US-backed Maidan regime, and has been forced to flee into exile after enduring years of harassment from nationalists.

This March, the libertarian politician and online pundit received an email from a friend, “Igor,” seeking to arrange a meeting. He subsequently learned that Igor was held by the SBU at the time and being used to bait Shariy into disclosing his location.

For his part, Shariy has been placed on the notorious Myrotvorets public blacklist of “enemies of the state” founded by Anton Geraschenko – the Ministry of Internal Affairs advisor who endorsed the assassination of Ukrainian lawmakers accused of Russian sympathies. Several journalists and Ukrainian dissidents, including the prominent columnist Oles Buzina, were murdered by state-backed death squads after their names appeared on the list.

Common Ukrainian citizens have also been subjected to torture since the start of the war this February. Seemingly countless videos have appeared on social media showing civilians tied to lamp posts, often with their genitals exposed or their faces painted green. Carried out by Territorial Defense volunteers tasked with enforcing law and order during wartime, these acts of humiliation and torture have targeted everyone from accused Russian sympathizers to Roma people to alleged thieves.

Roma people (“gypsies”) left Kiev as refugees and went to border town, Lviv, where they are facing discrimination by Ukrainians. Like here, tied to poles. A popular Ukrainian Telegram channel celebrates this action and mocks the victims.#Kyiv #Ukraine #Russia #Nazi pic.twitter.com/3cWZ9a78uA

— Global Politics (@Geopol2030) March 21, 2022

This is the human rights that Zelensky brought to Ukrainian civilians#Mariupol #StandWithUkraine #RussiaUkraineWar pic.twitter.com/EWFC048M2q

— UN voice of Justice (@TheUN_voice) April 3, 2022

Ukraine’s SBU studies torture and assassination from the CIA

Vassily Prozorov, a former SBU officer who defected to Russia following the Euromaidan coup, detailed the post-Maidan security services’ systemic reliance on torture to crush political opposition and intimidate citizens accused of Russian sympathies.

According to Prozorov, the ex-SBU officer, the Ukrainian security services have been directly advised by the CIA since 2014.

“CIA employees have been present in Kiev since 2014. They are residing in clandestine apartments and suburban houses,” he said. “However, they frequently come to the SBU’s central office for holding, for example, specific meetings or plotting secret operations.”

Below, Russia’s RIA Novosti profiled Prozorov and covered his disclosures in a 2019 special.

Journalist Dan Cohen interviewed a Ukrainian businessman named Igor who was arrested by the SBU for his financial ties with Russian companies and detained this March in the security service’s notorious headquarters in downtown Kiev. Igor said he overheard Russian POWs being beaten with pipes by Territorial Defense volunteers being coached by SBU officers. Pummeled to the sound of the Ukrainian national anthem, the Russian prisoners were brutalized until they confessed their hatred for Putin.

Then came Igor’s turn.

“They used a lighter to heat up a needle, then put it under my fingernails,” he told Cohen. “The worst was when they put a plastic bag over my head and suffocated me and when they held the muzzle of a Kalashnikov rifle to my head and forced me to answer their questions.”

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, the first head of the SBU after the Euromaidan regime change operation of 2013-14, nurtured close ties to Washington when he served as general consul to the Ukrainian embassy to the US during the George W. Bush administration. During that time, Nalyvaichenko was recruited by the CIA, according to his predecessor at the SBU, Alexander Yakimenko, who served under the Russian-oriented government of deposed President Viktor Yanukovych.

In 2021, Zelensky appointed one of Ukraine’s most notorious intelligence figures, Oleksander Poklad, to lead SBU’s counterintelligence division. Poklad is nicknamed “The Strangler,” a reference to his reputation for using torture and assorted dirty tricks to set-up his bosses’ political rivals on treason charges.

This April, a vivid illustration of the SBU’s brutality emerged in the form of video (below) showing its agents pummeling a group of men accused of Russian sympathies in the city of Dnipro.

Ukrainian SBU is arresting civilians in Dnipropetrovsk.

pic.twitter.com/bbHFeADnqg

— Vera Van Horne (@VeraVanHorne) April 5, 2022

“We will never take Russian soldiers prisoner”: Ukraine’s military flaunts its war crimes

While the Western media has focused squarely on alleged Russian human rights abuses since the outbreak of war, Ukrainian soldiers and pro-Ukrainian social media accounts have proudly exhibited sadistic war crimes, from field executions to the torture of captive soldiers.

This March, a pro-Ukrainian Telegram channel called White Lives Matter released a video of a Ukrainian soldier calling the fiancee of a Russian prisoner of war, seen below, and taunting her with promises to castrate the captive.

Ukrainian soldiers’ use of the cellphones of dead Russian soldiers to mock and hector their relatives appears to be a common practice. In fact, the Ukrainian government has begun using notoriously invasive facial recognition technology from Clearview AI, a US tech company, to identify Russian casualties and taunt their relatives on social media.

#ukraine soldiers calling family of deceased to mock and swear at them. Knowing modern phones – the soldier in question must’ve been alive before they unlocked his device. That’s another POW #warCrime to their repertoire. pic.twitter.com/D55T6Hu0se

— Lukasz Raczylo 🐭 🅨 (@raczylo) March 27, 2022

This April, a pro-Ukrainian Telegram channel called fckrussia2022 posted a video depicting a Russian soldier with one of his eyes bandaged, suggesting it had been gouged during torture, and mocked him as a “one-eyed” pig.

Perhaps the most gruesome image to have appeared on social media in recent weeks is the photo of a tortured Russian soldier who had one of his eyes gouged before he was killed. The accompanying post was captioned, “looking for Nazis.”

Photos distributed by pro-Ukraine Telegram channels showing captured, tortured and executed Russian soldiers

Video has also emerged this April showing Ukrainian soldiers shooting defenseless Russian POWs in the legs outside the city of Kharkov. A separate video published by Ukrainian and US-backed Georgian Legion soldiers showed the fighters carrying out field executions of wounded Russian captives near a village outside Kiev.

Ukrainian and Georgian Legion fighters celebrate after executing captive Russian soldiers on video

It is likely that these soldiers had been emboldened by their superiors’ blessings. Mamula Mamulashvili, the commander of the Georgian Legion, which participated in the field executions of wounded Russian POW’s, boasted this April that his unit freely engages in war crimes: “Yes, we tie their hands and feet sometimes. I speak for the Georgian Legion, we will never take Russian soldiers prisoner. Not a single one of them will be taken prisoner.”

Similarly, Gennadiy Druzenko, the head of the Ukrainian military medical service, stated in an interview with Ukraine 24 that he “issued an order to castrate all Russian men because they were subhuman and worse than cockroaches.”

Ukrainian officials present woman tortured and killed by Azov as victim of Russia

While Western media homes in on Russian human rights violations at home and inside Ukraine, the Ukrainian government has authorized a propaganda campaign known as “Total War” that includes the planting of bogus images and false stories to further implicate Russia.

In one especially cynical example of the strategy, Ukraine 24 –  a TV channel where guests have called for the genocidal extermination of Russian children – published a photo this April depicting a female corpse branded with a bloody swastika on her stomach. Ukraine 24 claimed that it found this woman in Gostumel, one of the regions in the Kiev Oblast that the Russians vacated on March 29.

Lesia Vasylenko, a Ukrainian member of parliament, and Oleksiy Arestovych, the top advisor to President Zelensky, published the photo of the defiled female corpse on social media. While Vasylenko left the photo online, Arestovych deleted it eight hours after posting when confronted with the fact that he had published a fake.

In fact, the image was pulled from footage originally recorded by Patrick Lancaster, a Donetsk-based US journalist who had filmed the corpse of a woman tortured and murdered by members of the Ukrainian Azov Battalion in a Mariupol school basement they had converted into a base.

At 2:31 in Lancaster’s video, the woman’s corpse can be seen clearly.

Ukrainian political operative @lesiavasylenko is spreading an especially cynical fake:

The original image was captured by @PLnewstoday and showed the corpse of a woman tortured and murdered in a Mariupol school basement by Ukrainian Nazis – the allies of Vasylenko. pic.twitter.com/gRnURAAaQ9

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) April 4, 2022

As weapons pour into Ukraine from NATO states and the war intensifies, the atrocities are almost certain to pile up – and with the blessing of leadership in Kiev. As Zelensky proclaimed during a visit to the city of Bucha this April, “if we do not find a civilized way out, you know our people – they will find an uncivilized way out.”

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The editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.

Featured image: Above: The torture of left-wing activist Alexander Matjuschenko on March 3 in Dnipro, recorded by Azov members. Below: President Volodymyr Zelensky poses during a media engagement.

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In 2009 the Guahibo Indigenous community of El Trompillo was forced to move from what members say is their ancestral land.

The official owners of the land are reportedly connected to former senator Alfonso Mattos, and plantation companies affiliated with Mattos have been developed in the territory; sources say they are polluting the land, water and air.

El Trompillo community members hope the higher courts rule in their favor and return them to their land – but in the meantime they live in cramped, impoverished conditions.

This story is a collaboration between Mongabay Latam and Rutas del Conflicto in Colombia.

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Nearly 13 years have passed since the Guahibo Indigenous community El Trompillo was allegedly forcibly relocated from their territory. Members report persistent hunger and overcrowding in makeshift dwellings cobbled out of green canvas and garbage bags in the municipality of La Primavera in the Colombian department of Vichada. They say they still have hope of someday returning to their ancestral land 30 kilometers (19 miles) away, land that is officially owned by a former Colombian senator and his family and allocated for oil palm plantations.

“We are waiting for [agencies] to tell us that we can return, but in the meantime, they are damaging the land, our sacred places,” said one community member, who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation.

Like this individual, almost all sources contacted for this story asked for their identity to be protected due to the violent conditions that exist in this part of Colombia. Over the past year, the presence of paramilitary-linked armed groups has increased, according to the Department of Protection of Citizens’ Rights; in their March 2021 report, the agency stated these groups include Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia[Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia] and the Puntilleros Libertadores del Vichada [Liberators of Vichada]. Alleged murders of land claimants in other parts of the eastern plains region of Colombia has also caused fear among Indigenous communities.

A typical dwelling in the El Trompillo community. Image by Juan Carlos Contreras Medina.

El Trompillo’s claimed territory is located in the Altagracia, an extensive savannah of 130 square kilometers (50 square miles) between the Negro and Elvita rivers and surrounded by gallery forests and wetland ecosystems called morichales. The formal owners of the land are relatives and close associates of former senator Alfonso Mattos and their oil palm estates are managed by the companies Agrícola El Encanto and Aceites del Vichada, which also belong to Mattos and his family. Alfonso Mattos is the brother of Carlos Mattos, who has a Spanish extradition request against him for bribing a judge, and the livestock farmer Edward Mattos, who has been accused of murder and links to paramilitarism in the departments of Cesar and Meta.

Indigenous community members say they have witnessed the mismanagement of waste by the oil palm companies occupying their land.

“They have a very large garbage dump; in some parts the water is very dirty because of the liquids they put on the oil palm, while other parts are full of bags and plastic,” said one person who requested anonymity for safety reasons. A local official said he was able to verify waste management complaints, but requested that his name be withheld due to fear of reprisal.

Mongabay Latam and Rutas del Conflicto reporters observed discarded waste such as bags, tarpaulins and empty plastic containers in the Agrícola El Encanto and Aceites del Vichada oil palm plantations. Image by Juan Carlos Contreras Medina.

An environmental engineer who has worked for other oil palm companies in Colombia’s Altillanura region confirmed evidence of solid waste mismanagement.

“There are regulations for the management of such waste,” said the engineer, who requested anonymity. “From what these images [of Agrícola El Encanto and Aceites del Vichada] show, they [the companies] are not complying with Decree No. 1076 of May 26, 2015, which provides directives for oil palm crop cultivation.”

Complaints against the oil palm project first began in 2016. According to environmental regulatory agency Corporinoquia, Agrícola El Encanto and Aceites del Vichada were sanctioned on May 16, 2016 and ordered to immediately suspend operation of its palm oil extraction plant “for not having environmental permits relating to atmospheric emissions.” Corporinoquia also found the companies responsible for “dumping industrial wastewater without prior treatment.” In August 2017, Corporinoquia representatives returned to the area and again found irregularities, for which it filed charges as part of an environmental sanctioning process.

Both Agrícola El Encanto and Aceites del Vichada are owned by the family of former senator Alfonso Mattos, which includes his wife Ana Cecilia Lacouture and his children David Alfonso, Catherine and Stephanie Mattos Lacouture, per Chamber of Commerce records.

Indigenous children from the El Trompillo community. Image by Juan Carlos Contreras Medina.

In the mid-1990s, when the Guahibo community were still practicing a traditional semi-nomadic life, the 16th Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) arrived in San Teodoro, a town neighboring Altagracia, quickly turning it into a key location for drug trafficking.

Altagracia was divided into 14 plots by the Colombian Institute of Agrarian Reform (Incora), which are currently being exploited by Agrícola El Encanto and Aceites del Vichada. Among the farms operating in the area are San Cayetano and Judea, which are now reportedly owned by people with close links to former senator Alfonso Mattos.

Altagracia (brown area) is the Guahibo ancestral territory. The green area bordering it to the north is land cultivated with oil palm. Image from Google Earth.

The Guahibo territory has been divided into 14 plots. Image by the National Land Restitution Unit.

On May 3, 1999, a group of about 200 paramilitary members arrived in San Teodoro, a neighboring town of Altagracia, killing five people, including Eduardo Ríos, president of the Community Action Board of San Teodoro.

Rumors spread that the armed group wanted to kill the Guahibo people: “They said that they were going to kill us, we were afraid at that time,” said a Guahibo community member who wished to remain anonymous for safety concerns.

Between 2005 and 2006, paramilitary groups in the area demobilized, giving way to the arrival of large agribusiness companies, a move promoted by the government of former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez.

Aerial shot of the Agrícola El Encanto oil palm plantation. Image by Juan Carlos Contreras Medina.

Guahibo community members said that they continued to live in Altagracia until 2008, when 20 armed men appeared and told them that the land had an owner and they were required to leave. Community members say the men said they represented Alfonso Mattos.

The incident prompted some from the community to move to Puerto Carreño, the capital of Vichada. But community members who stayed said that armed men returned, this time with Alfonso Mattos, to demand that those who remained leave the territory.

“We didn’t leave, but in August [2009] unknown individuals arrived and set fire to some farms. We couldn’t put up with it anymore so we came to La Primavera,” said a Guahibo community member.

Indigenous leaders, legally represented by Corporación Claretiana Norman Pérez Bello, have requested that the National Land Agency revoke the awarded plots. They also requested that the Land Restitution Unit formally hand over the 14 plots occupied by the companies to the Guahibo community.

Afternoon in El Trompillo. Image by Juan Carlos Contreras Medina.

In 1989, Colombia signed Convention No. 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), which protects and recognizes the collective property of Indigenous peoples’ ancestral territories.

“From then on, several laws have been approved to give these communities titles for the land on which they have historically lived and developed their cultural practices,” said Brayan Triana, a lawyer at the Land Observatory of the University of Rosario in Bogotá.

Mongabay Latam and Rutas del Conflicto contacted Alfonso Mattos by phone and WhatsApp to ask for his version of the story and also about the environmental protocols of Agrícola El Encanto and Aceites del Vichada. Messages were also sent to the emails of the two companies registered with the Chamber of Commerce. No responses were received.

In 2020, a judge ruled in favor of the Guahibo community’s claim. However, those who claim ownership of the land opposed the ruling and the case will go to a higher court to ultimately determine to whom the land belongs. It is expected that this next step of the legal process will take several years.

In the meantime, the 32 displaced Guahibo families continue to hold on in El Trompillo. There they are joined other displaced Indigenous communities, including other Guahibo communities and groups such as the Cuiba and Piapoco. In total, 636 people live on 0.23 square kilometers (0.09 square miles).

The El Trompillo settlement is not the only one of its kind in this part of Colombia. Several other such as Puerto Gaitán and Puerto Carreño dot the region, creating belts of poverty in urban areas.

Overcrowding and hunger is rife. The Guahibo of Altagracia survive on the little work community members can find in La Primavera and on the sale of woven goods. “Sometimes there’s work for one day, but it’s not permanent. We also sell what the women make, but it’s not enough to provide food every day,” one community member said.

Crafts made by the weavers in the El Trompillo community. Image by Juan Carlos Contreras Medina.

A representative of Corporación Claretiana, who wished to remain anonymous, said agro-industrial and oil development for the region is sponsored by the State itself and completely excludes Indigenous residents. He said communities have been subjected to systematic violence to remove them from their territories for decades.

Sources said displacement may also have a detrimental impact on Indigenous cultures and exposes residents to public health and social problems such as drug addiction.

“We hope that our ancestral territory will be returned to us, along with our sacred sites, the animals, the streams, the trees – everything,” said a Guahibo community member who requested anonymity. “We can’t accept that they are damaging where we have lived for so long.”

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Featured image: Aerial shot of the Agrícola El Encanto oil palm plantation. Image by Juan Carlos Contreras Medina.

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After committing the shameful atrocities of direct colonization against the non-West, the West felt it was necessary to invent methods of indirect colonization. Other than institutional controls, they would incarcerate and assassinate many of the non-Western leaders who disobeyed the West. But killing was bloody and messy, reminiscent of their colonial atrocities. Hence a new mode of injustice was perfected, that of the regime change. Advances in information technology and impact of corporate and social media on human consciousness, brought about more subtlety to the science of regime change. This icing on the cake of international institutions such as UN, FATF, IBRD & IMF, are all used to bring down representative and pro-people governments. Methods used for regime changes are bribery, threat, extortion and blackmail. If the above observation be true, then who says that the West is civilized? If the populations of EU and USA claim that it is them who vote such governments into power who are against self-determination in the developing world, then West’s democracy is opposed to universal self-determination to which they are signatories inside the UN. Law of the jungle, brutality and injustice are ways of uncivilized barbarians.

This is what the barbarians have done once again in Pakistan. The West has successfully conducted ‘operation regime change’ in Pakistan in an attempt to steal Pakistan away from its family of Asian nations. Instead, Pakistan has been by force shoved back into its old role, as NATO’s minion. Imran Khan’s elected government was struck down in a campaign in which a weak state and a weak civil society were bought out with money. Opposition political parties, PTI’s turncoat members, an extremely poisonous, seditious and anti-people media, dishonorable judges, US-subservient Army top leadership, all collaborated to take down an honest leader and replaced him with well-known thugs, a staggering number of whom are either indicted or convicted for crimes ranging from corruption, treason and murder.

If homegrown governments are replaced with foreign imposed rule, then Pakistan can never be sovereign enough to make its own policies. This means that China cannot pledge its future to an uncertain Pakistan and must help Pakistan in bringing about political stability. If CPEC is existential for BRI and BRI is existential for China, then bringing stability to Pakistan by counter-intervention is China’s only option. If the US is not ready to let go of Pakistan, then China should consider ‘buying’ more influence in Pakistan in order to defeat the Indian and American influence in Af-Pak-Iran region.  As a Pakistani I say that with shame that since our ruling elite gets sold so cheaply that it may not be an expensive proposition for China to beat America in its dirty game by out-bidding the US in Pakistani parliament’s horse-trading. However, it is against the Chinese principles of governance to do such a thing.

So, why did the US do that?

It is public knowledge that the West has been openly against CPEC and BRI. West’s regional agent, India, has made dozens upon dozens of statements against the Chinese plans of connectivity and threatened to invade Gilgit-Baltistan to cut off Pakistan from China. Imran Khan was in favor of CPEC and Eurasian integration. He was also in favor of good bilateral relations with Russia. Particularly, he was in favor of promoting more connectivity and cooperation amongst the Muslim countries. This is a necessary prerequisite of the BRI since the Muslim world occupies the central and the biggest landmass without which no land connectivity would be possible between Europe and East Asia. This is also why FM Wang Yi made a statement last month that China wants to help the Muslim world to bring about peace. This statement was diametrically opposite of America’s ‘war policy’ in the Muslim world. The Western imperialism doesn’t allow intra-Muslim cooperation at all because of its necessity to oppose self-determination in the Muslim World. They killed Liaqat Ali Khan, Z. A. Bhutto, Zia, Shah Faisal, Gaddafi, Nasser, and many others whom they found guilty of promoting solidarity and cooperation among Muslim countries. This is why the West constantly promotes the three phobias; while Imran Khan spoke against Islamophobia, and rejected Sinophobia and Russophobia.

What Should Pakistan Do?

Out of the formerly colonized world, only China escaped West’s iron cage because they cleverly negotiated a political system for themselves which suited their needs. I cannot go into the details for this system here, but I will focus on just one aspect of it which is its one party system. In addition to the ‘one party’, there are numerous small parties that work in tandem with the CPC inside China. However, the biggest party that leads all aspects of life in China is the CPC. More importantly, to call the CPC a ‘party’ is perhaps too narrow of a description. It is much more than just a ‘party’ because of how the word ‘party’ is understood in the Western world. For lack of another term for now, we can call it a single party system.

In a book length discussion elsewhere I have argued that single party systems with state based governance which are pro-people have more in common with the essence of Islamic political thought than does Western democracy which thrives on divisive individualism rather than society’s need for inner unity across different levels. Pakistan should consider a state based single party system of governance which is based on the widest understanding of the Islamic tradition. From a purely traditional point of view, Western democracies defy the principles of Islamic political thought in a way that state-based single-party systems which affirm transcendence may not. From an Islamic point of view, Western democracies may not be permissible because of their deep secularism is tantamount of denial of transcendence.

More importantly, after trying and failing for 75 years, it is the call of common sense that Pakistan should abandon its overall Westernization project in favor of its own traditions. Pakistan should carefully analyze the Chinese path of development and security to see how it worked for China.

The Problem with Western Democratism:

The West presents itself that it has political and ideological diversity because of its multiple party or two party democracies, but in reality they are only superficially pluralistic because their puppet masters are the same. The corporations and bankers who bankroll the campaigns of both political parties wield the decisive influence on state policies. Many Western governments of EU and America are deeply influenced by this international establishment.

In an effort to protect itself from Western regime changes, China conceived of a single party system, which has served it well, so much so, that when the CPC took over China, the Western history books soon added a chapter to their history of China books titled ‘loss of China’. The West lost China because it came up with a system which made infiltration difficult for the outsiders and very dangerous for the inside collaborators. This is why the West is always sulking about China’s ‘dictatorship’. Whereas in reality, China’s pro-people system is more democratic than the elite-privileging democracies of the West whose people are falling by the wayside at a fast pace.

Some scholars of contemporary history and social sciences have argued that China is unique, hence not copyable. I dispute that China is unique. In one sense all people are unique and in another sense, all people are similar. The ability to relate across cultures lies in the latter principle, otherwise there would be no intercultural understanding, interfaith dialogues and inter-civilizational harmony. I believe it is possible that people, cultures and civilizations have learnt from each other. There is historical evidence for this. Therefore, if Pakistan failed in its experiment with Western democracy (like China did from 1900 to 1949) it is alright. It can try something new and off the beaten path of backward Western ideologies of 300 year old enlightenment and 200 years old modernism. Pakistan should not hesitate to consult with friendly neighbors to see what has worked for them. It is my claim that considering elements of China’s journey to development and security will be very useful for Pakistan.

How can Pakistan prevent such a thing from happening again?

Foreigners are in control of the Pakistani parliament with the help of the insiders. This is nothing new for Pakistan, as in the case of many developing nations. History has reminded Pakistan again; Pakistan institutions are weak because its system is faulty. Large swaths of state officials and civil society can be easily bought. Civil bureaucracy, media, judiciary; all of them become compromised. Importantly, out of all the institutions, Pakistani military is more functional than other sectors of the state and it is dearly loved by its people. How could officers like Bajwa make it to the top who are willing to sacrifice national interest under the US influence? It is common knowledge in Islamabad that in 2016, most army officers in Pakistan thought that Gen. Zubair Mahmood Hayat was more competent and deserving than Bajwa for the position of the army chief. But the American influence inside the senior military elite was so strong, that it prevented the smooth meritocratic functioning of our military.

In a paper titled “Is there an Islamic Theory of Civil-Military Relations?” I have argued that civilian rule is superior to military rule because of the very nature of military command. This is why in China a civil president is head of the military commission. Since militaries are powerful, their presence is bound to be political. But Western democratism opposes political role of military in theory, but often supports military rule elsewhere as in Pakistan. In Pakistan the size and strength of the military makes it the most powerful and the most political out of all institutions. But under the influence of Western ideas our military claims that we have nothing to do with politics, which isn’t true. However, since that is the official stance, military can easily evade accountability of their political actions. If military’s political calculus is right, they claim applause from the nation. If their political calculus is wrong, they say we are neutral to national politics. This gives our military plausible deniability while transgressing an important principle: if you have political power, you must also have political accountability.

To pretend that militaries will never be political is a daydream. This is why President Xi Jinping routinely speaks to his military and encourages them to play their ‘political role’ with dutiful diligence and responsibility. Pakistan needs the same. It needs a system which give our military due space to play their political role, but openly and responsibly.

Pakistan is a country of intelligent, well-meaning and hospitable people, a strong military, but it has a weak political system that cannot protect itself against foreigners. The West not only proposes but also disposes an archaic system of governance for us. Like most psychologically colonized societies of South Asia, their Westernized ruling elites accept the ‘white man’s gospel’ uncritically and naively to think that Western democracy is the only legitimate form of government. Even if they follow the dictates of their Western masters, the masters are still not happy. As demonstrated in Musadeq’s Iran, Morsi’s Egypt, French overthrow of democracy in Algeria, all of these cases indicate that the West is not serious about either proposing a democratic system, let alone respecting one if one has come about.

China’s situation during Guomingdang period was somewhat similar. Only after having a single party system could they come out of under the Western thumb. The Western critics often say that the single party system doesn’t allow for choice and dissension. This is propaganda. All dissension in a single party system is shared on the widest platform. This type of rule keeps the foreigners out. Despite this, the West created problems for China in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang. But laws in China are tough enough and it doesn’t take CPC’s judicial system very long to send the corrupt to the gallows. Pakistan should seriously consider it. First Pakistan should go for system change, second it should go for cultural change, which means saying no to all forms of westernization which is harmful for our civilization, and secondly, delving into intelligent understanding of Islam while doing socio-political reforms to replace westernization.

Rahul Gandhi, the head of India’s opposition political party tweeted: “Modi should explain to the nation why he spent billions of USD to purchase expensive weapons in the name of fighting Pakistan, when whole Pakistan can be bought in less than 1 billion USD”. But regime change in Pakistan according to some estimates may have only taken a few million dollars. If modest amount of money can overthrow our regimes, then certainly our security is compromised. Who is responsible for our security? It is not only the military but our civil society institutions and public too. A political system that better protects one’s state is more superior than the one that is ready to sell the state for personal gains. The path of Western democracy is disastrous for humanity. Many Muslims disagree with the Taliban’s understanding of Islam, but for 20 years they could not be decisively infiltrated by the US and the Indians. US and NATO forces spent trillions of dollars in Afghanistan, but could not infiltrate to their core. One of the biggest reasons for this was that the Taliban do not believe in westernization of their political system.

The new regime is ready to do for the West what Imran Khan was not prepared to do. They don’t want us to support Kashmiris’ human rights. They want us to give the US military bases to kill our brothers in Afghanistan and our tribal areas. They want us to become part of wars of global fascism against humanity. They want to weaken our military, tarnish its image. They want us to accept the Indian hegemony (like Bangladesh), they don’t want us to be close to China and Russia and eventually they want to go for our nuclear weapons (like Ukraine).

Pakistan needs help in form of counter-interference from China. Only 1,500 people have taken hostage the future of 220 million people. The cost of losing Pakistan to the US is prohibitive for China in the long run.

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Ejaz Akram is an Associate Professor of Religion and Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

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***

More than 769 athletes have collapsed on the field during a game from March 2021 to March 2022

The shocking statistic was revealed by One America News Network (OAN), which also found the average age of the athletes who suffered cardiac arrest is just 23 years old

An updated report by Good Sciencing, a team of investigators, news editors, journalists and “truth seekers,” has detailed 890 cardiac arrests and other serious issues among athletes, including 579 deaths, following COVID-19 shots

With cases like these becoming impossible to ignore, even a mainstream media sports channel in Australia speculated that the health issues could be linked to COVID-19 shots, and one of the hosts acknowledged that multiple players have suffered from heart issues and Bell’s palsy following COVID-19 booster shots

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More than 769 athletes have collapsed on the field during a game from March 2021 to March 2022. The shocking statistic was revealed by One America News Network (OAN), which also found the average age of the athletes who suffered cardiac arrest is just 23 years old.¹ The unprecedented surge in cardiac arrest and other heart issues among elite athletes coincides with the rollout of COVID-19 jabs.

The Miami Open made headlines in early April 2022 after 15 players — all of whom had reportedly received COVID-19 injections² — dropped out. Among them were favorites Paula Badosa and Jannik Sinner. Badosa left the court in tears after becoming unwell, and Sinner’s opponent said he saw him “bend over” on the court, noting “it was very strange.”³ Even the fans were confused, with one stating, “What is going on?”⁴

As Pearson Sharp of OAN explained, “These are just two of more than 769 athletes who have collapsed during a game, on the field, over the last year.” He continued:⁵

“How many 23-year-old athletes were collapsing and suffering heart attacks before this year? Do you know any 23-year-old people who had heart attacks before now? And these are just the ones we know about. How many have gone unreported? Nearly 800 athletes — young, fit people in the prime of life — falling down on the field. In fact, 500% more soccer players in the EU are dropping dead from heart attacks than just one year ago.

Coincidence? When the Pfizer vaccine is known to cause heart inflammation? No. In fact, many doctors treating these players list their injuries and deaths as being directly caused by the vaccine … This is not a coincidence.”

VAERS May Not Show the Whole Picture

As of April 1, 2022, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which is where adverse events caused by COVID-19 jabs in the U.S. are supposed to be collected, lists 26,693 deaths along with 147,677 hospitalizations in association with the COVID-19 shot.⁶ There are also 13,677 heart attacks and 38,024 cases of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the tissue sac surrounding the heart).

Myocarditis and pericarditis cause symptoms such as chest pain, shortness of breath and a fluttering or pounding heart. Cases have occurred most often after mRNA COVID-19 injections (Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna), particularly in male adolescents and young adults, according to the CDC. Further, myocarditis occurs more often after the second injection, usually within a week.⁷

Past investigations have shown only between 1%⁸ and 10%⁹ of adverse reactions are ever reported to VAERS, which is a passive, voluntary reporting system, so the actual number could be much higher. Kyle Warner is one athlete who filed a VAERS report about his own health injuries following the COVID-19 jab. It took him 45 minutes to complete — a length of time that many doctors can’t or won’t devote when it comes to reporting adverse vaccine reactions seen among their patients.

Warner, who is 29 years old, was at the peak of his career as a professional mountain bike racer when, in June 2021, he got his second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot. He suffered a reaction so severe that, months later, he was still spending days in bed, easily overwhelmed by too much mental or physical exertion.

“I believe where there is risk, there needs to be choice,” he said.¹⁰ Instead, “People are being coerced into making a decision based on lack of information versus being convinced of a decision based on total information transparency.”¹¹ Despite the rising number of adverse effects being reported in VAERS, top government officials, such as NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci and CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, have attempted to discredit it.

Most notably, this occurred during a Senate hearing when both individuals implied that if a person had received the jab and was then killed in a car accident, it’s possible it could be recorded in VAERS as a vaccine injury.¹² However, while anyone can make a report to VAERS — a component that critics use to claim that VAERS can contain errors and even false claims — due to the lengthy and complicated submittal process, adverse events are notoriously under- — not over- — reported.

Shocking Stories of Athletes Harmed by COVID-19 Jabs

Warner developed pericarditis, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and reactive arthritis following his second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot.¹³ Again, he’s a young, world-class athlete whose life has been sidelined by the shots.

Unfortunately, many doctors are unwilling to acknowledge that the COVID-19 shots might be related to patients’ injury complaints, and many who have been injured find their stories have remained hidden from public view, with YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms censoring their personal stories and videos. Some, however, have made it through to mainstream media, including:

U.K. football legend and sports commentator Matt Le Tissier, featured in the video above, is among those who have been speaking out about the large number of athletes who have collapsed or died on the field — and he lost his job as a commentator because of it. In an interview with Red Voice Media, Le Tissier is asked about his thoughts on the surge of cardiac events in the sporting world, to which he responded:¹⁷

“I’ve never seen anything like it. I played for 17 years. I don’t think I saw one person in 17 years have to come off the football pitch with breathing difficulties, clutching their heart, heart problems …

The last year, it’s just been unbelievable how many people, not just footballers but sports people in general, tennis players, cricketers, basketball players, just how many are just keeling over. And at some point, surely you have to say this isn’t right, this needs to be investigated.”

By December 2021, 300 reports of athletes collapsing, and some dying, had already been collected,¹⁸ including high-profile European Soccer star Adama Traore, who clutched his chest and collapsed on the field. An updated report by Good Sciencing, a team of investigators, news editors, journalists and “truth seekers,” has detailed 890 cardiac arrests and other serious issues among athletes, including 579 deaths, following COVID-19 shots.¹⁹

They’re maintaining a “nonexhaustive and continuously growing list of mainly young athletes who had major medical issues in 2021/2022 after receiving one or more COVID vaccines” and note:²⁰

“It is definitely not normal for so many mainly young athletes to suffer from cardiac arrests or to die while playing their sport, but this year it is happening. Many of these heart issues and deaths come shortly after they got a COVID vaccine. While it is possible this can happen to people who did not get a COVID vaccine, the sheer numbers clearly point to the only obvious cause.

… Initially, many of these were not reported. We know that many people were told not to tell anyone about their adverse reactions and the media was not reporting them. They started happening and ramping up after the first COVID vaccinations.

The mainstream media still are not reporting most, but sports news cannot ignore the fact that soccer players and other stars collapse in the middle of a game due to a sudden cardiac arrest. Many of those die — more than 50%.

We also note that many posts in Facebook, Instagram, twitter, forums and news stories are being removed. So now we are receiving some messages saying there is no proof of the event or of vaccination status. That is partly because this information is being hidden.”

Gary Dempsey, a professional soccer player with a nearly two-decade career, also tweeted just how unusual the recent wave of cardiac events among athletes is:²¹

“Was a professional for nearly 20 years. From 1996. Played nearly 500 games. Club and international level. Never ever was there 1 cardiac arrest. Either in the crowd or a player. It’s actually quite scary.”

Heart Issues and Bell’s Palsy ‘Through the Roof’

This is from a main stream sports channel in Australia pic.twitter.com/HJHWAlEpRg

— Luke Rudkowski (@Lukewearechange) April 11, 2022

The video above is from a mainstream sports channel in Australia,²² detailing another professional athlete, Ollie Wines, who is out of the game due to nausea, dizziness and heart palpitations.

With cases like this becoming impossible to ignore, the “Sunday Footy Show” panel speculated that the health issues could be linked to COVID-19 shots, and one of the hosts acknowledged that multiple players have suffered from heart issues and Bell’s palsy following COVID-19 booster shots. “Wards filled with people suffering the same issues,” he said.²³

Former professional footballer Matthew Lloyd, who was recently diagnosed with Bell’s palsy, stated, “Heart issues and Bell’s palsy have gone through the roof since the boosters and Covid issues.”²⁴

During phase 3 clinical trials of mRNA COVID-19 shots, more cases of facial paralysis occurred in the vaccine groups (seven out of 35,654) compared to the placebo group (one out of 35,611), leading the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to recommended monitoring vaccine recipients for facial paralysis.²⁵

Lloyd also said that he’s heard of many cases of heart issues similar to Wines’. “We had [sports journalist] Michelangelo Rucci on … and he said that there’s a ward filled with people with similar symptoms to Ollie Wines — nausea, heart issues — so there has to be something more to it.”²⁶

It’s well known that toxic spike proteins can circulate in your body after infection or COVID-19 injection, causing damage to cells, tissues and organs. As your heart beats faster during intense athletic activity, the spike proteins are able to circulate faster throughout your body, pointing to a potential reason why so many athletes are collapsing on the field.

It’s important that these stories are heard, so if you or a loved one has been injured by a COVID-19 injection, please share your story with us and encourage others you know who have a story to share theirs as well.

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Notes

¹ The Gateway Pundit April 8, 2022

² Need to Know News April 3, 2022

^3, 4 Principia Scientific International April 7, 2022

⁵ OAN News April 10, 2022, 3:51

⁶ Open VAERS, COVID-19 Vaccine Data

⁷ U.S. CDC November 12, 2021

⁸ The Vaccine Reaction January 9, 2020

⁹ BMJ 2005;330:433

¹⁰ YouTube, Dr. John Campbell, Kyle’s Vaccine Complication October 21, 2021, 1:01

^11, 13 YouTube, Dr. John Campbell, Kyle’s Vaccine Complication October 21, 2021, 41:51

¹² YouTube, January 11, 2022, Min 2:49:30

¹⁴ Newsbreeze November 6, 2021

¹⁵ Sport24 September 24, 2021

¹⁶ Banned News October 27, 2021

¹⁷ Rumble, February 1, 2022, Minute 23:30 – 24:35

¹⁸ The Gateway Pundit December 6, 2021

^19, 20, 21 Good Sciencing, Real Science

²² Twitter, Luke Rudkowski April 11, 2022

^23, 24, 26 Mail Online April 10, 2022

²⁵ JAMA Internal Medicine April 27, 2021

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The plot behind Ukraine is far deeper than anyone is willing to talk about publically. Yanukovich was corrupt and his sons were acting like a protection racket. Yanukovich was keen on joining the EU but the treaty had a clause in there that would have put Ukraine in NATO through the backdoor. Ukraine would have to comply will all the rules and regulations of NATO without formally being admitted. Worse still, Ukraine was to trade exclusively with the EU when Russia was its main trading partner and its fuel came from Russia. This was the first attempt by the West to bring Ukraine into NATO.

That is why Yanukovich backed out and that is what began the whole uprising. To appease the protestors, Yanukovich agreed to early elections in nine months. This is where the US Neocons were hard at work to actually see the uprising as an opportunity and they wanted to install their own people. That was all in the leaked phone call of Victoria Nuland.

Zelensky was elected with overwhelming support to create peace which was exactly OPPOSITE of the objectives of the American Neocons. The Ukrainian Nationalists (Nazis) threatened to kill Zelensky if he pushed for peace with Russia. Zelensky did a political flip-flop and yielded to the Nazi movement. Reliable sources insisted that the Nazis threatened to kill Zelensky to prevent any peace with Russia.

Don’t forget McCain and Lesley Graham even addressed the Ukrainian Nazis promising them to support back in December 2016 after Trump was elected, but before he was sworn in. The Neocons were hard at work to ensure that there would be no peace with Russia.

The entire Russiagate has been discredited but we must understand the reality of international relations. Hillary, who is a Neocon and was friends with John McCain to the point he is the one who handed the fraudulent Steel Dossier to James Comey at the FBI, was instrumental in the failed takeover of Russia by the bankers blackmailing Yeltsin and interfering in the 2000 election which brought Putin to power. Hillary clearly concocted the whole theory that Trump was a puppet of Putin. The Neocons even spun the story that Putin was ex-KGB and that meant he wanted to resurrect the old Soviet Union which was also a lie.

With the seriousness of these actions, we are now heading into war over fake news. Obama had refused to provide military aid to Ukraine and the entire Russiagate was to box in Trump who was then advised to provide military weapons to Ukraine to prove he was not a puppet of Putin. It was the Neocons who were trying to push Trump into an eye-to-eye confrontation.

What Kennedy did to the Neocons was reject their advice and in the Cuban Missle Crisis, this resulted in a monumental shift in US-Russian relations. It forced both parties to realize that they needed each other and that confrontation was not the answer. The Neocons disagreed. This probably cost Kennedy his life. I believe the Neocons had him killed and Oswald was hinted that he was somehow connected to Russia. The CIA refused to release the files and the only reason is to hide the fact that the Neocons took out Kennedy.

Before he died, Robert McNamara (1916 – 2009) was a leading Neocon that pushed the country into the Vietnam war.  He was famous for saying: “I learned early on never answer the question that is asked of you. Answer the question that you wish had been asked of you. And quite frankly, I follow that rule. It’s a very good rule.” McNamara finally admitted that they were wrong particularly in their assessment of Russia as a threat. The perception that Russia is a threat is still dominating the agenda today and there is absolutely no attempt to create world peace.

By creating Russiagate, the main objective was to prevent Trump from working any peace deal with Russia. That was the same objective of McCain and Graham running to Ukraine now that Trump was elected to promise aid to the Ukrainian Nazis to keep up their war against Russians. Can you imagine if the Cuban Missile Crisis took place during the Trump Administration, the Neocons would have been in their glory warning Trump any peace deal would confirm he was just a puppet of Putin. That would have e guaranteed war – not peace. This was the strategic move – a checkmate against Trump seeking peace as did Kennedy.

Reliable sources also claim that the transcript of the phone call between Trump and Zelensky that was used for impeachment was not the full conversation. Trump had assumed that Zelensky was serious about peace and would have supported that decision. But this would have been seen as making Trump the puppet of Putin. This scenario was vital to prevent peace and eventually put the pieces in place for the war that now clouds the horizon.

The DEMONIZING of Trump began to PREVENT world peace and to strip Trump of any ability to reach a peace deal with Russia. Putin did NOT want to reestablish the old Soviet Union, but instead, he saw the rise of China economically and sought to bring Russia into an economic player on the global scale. He wanted to be remembered for being the leader who brought Russia to its economic greatness – not the reestablishment of the USSR which was the dream of Stalin, not Lenin nor Putin.

The image of Trump and Putin had to be manipulated to direct the world into the new political agenda leaving these two leaders who wanted to make their respective nations great again. So far, they have accomplished their goals with strategic cunning and manipulation. To this day, there remain people who are just obsessed with their hatred of Trump. They refuse to come up for air remaining below the surface in the darkness of the depths. To see the plot, they first have to realize that Trump is no longer president and the Neocons will do everything in their power to prevent him from ever running again. That’s what the January 6th hearings are all designed to do – charge him with INSURRECTION to prevent him constitutionally from ever running again. But with that failing, they would more likely than not assassinate him. These people are playing for keeps and they see their goal – the destruction of Russia and China – within their reach.

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***

The White House plan to destroy Russia by calling President Vladimir Putin names proceeds apace. Apparently, the man whom President Joe Biden has called a “thug,” “killer,” and “war criminal” is now also charged with carrying out a “genocide” and, according to CIA Director William Burns, he may in “despair” over his apparently stalled invasion, be contemplating the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Meanwhile over at the Pentagon, positively aglow with the largest “defense” budget since Vietnam, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley is advising that the war started in Ukraine will require building still more US military bases in Europe to confront Putin.

It is unclear who exactly in the band of rogues surrounding Biden is most responsible for the rhetorical flourishes and hyperbole, though one might assume that it is in a fact a group effort by a chorus of mental midgets, most of whom were inherited from the beatified Barack Obama’s Administration. Only Hillary is missing. But at the same time, one must wonder how if all the sobriquets inevitably fail to bring down Putin what plan B might be. After all, as Russia is a significant country possessing a ballistic and submarine launched nuclear missile capability that could destroy the United States, there will have to be some way to dialogue with the Kremlin after the Ukraine fiasco has ended. Calling foreign heads of state criminals and mass murderers is not the best way to restore a satisfactory level of mutual respect that will permit discussion regarding issues of mutual concern, like war and peace.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is being heavily coached by neocon handlers to push the right buttons to appeal to international sentiment in favor of his country. He has been very successful at being alarming about the Russian threat coupled with his demands for more and better weapons. Two expressions that have come to the surface recently to further blacken Vladimir Putin have centered around the concern that the Russians will employ what is referred to as a false flag deception or use chemical weapons in such a fashion, possibly against themselves, so as to justify broadening their invasion. Indeed, the two can be used together. A false flag essentially involves an assailant or a contact pretending to represent something apart from their or his/her genuine identify in an attempt to deceive the targeted individual. False flags are used extensively in intelligence operations and also in military operations where an attempt is being made to hide the true attribution of an act of war.

In my own experience as a CIA operations officer, I once “developed” a relationship with a Libyan intelligence officer using the false identity of an Italian businessman. The Libyan was amendable to an information sharing relationship with an Italian to line his own pockets, but would have balked at the treasonous implications of having a connection with an American. Libya was, not so long ago, a colony of Italy and my contact spoke decent Italian. That was a classic false flag operation conducted to carry out espionage against a foreign target.

Photograph of men in Khan Sheikdoun in Syria, allegedly inside a crater where a sarin-gas bomb landed. (Source: Consortiumnews)

A more recent instance of what might be regarded as a false flag with much more lethal consequences was when President Donald Trump attacked a Syrian airbase with 59 cruise missiles in the wake of an almost certainly fabricated report that President Bashar al-Assad’s army had used chemical weapons in an attack on Khan Shaykhun in 2017. Independent investigators subsequently determined that the anti-regime terrorists who were occupying the city at the time had themselves staged the attack and deliberately set it up and blamed it on the Syrian government to produce an expected US response, which was forthcoming as Trump responded to the news headlines and did not bother to order anyone to check the reliability of his intelligence sources before ordering “bombs away.” Fortunately, the evidence that it had likely been a false flag carried out by allies of Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) soon surfaced and there were no additional American attacks.

The latest recriminations hurled at Putin have included his alleged massacre of possibly hundreds of civilians at Bucha as well as the killing of over 50 civilians at the Kramatorsk Train station on April 8th, which almost immediately raised suspicion about a possible false flag. Starting with motive, it made no sense for Russia to either massacre civilians or attack a non-military target like a transportation hub, which would produce a large number of casualties, as it would give NATO and the US a wedge issue to increase pressure on Russia and its soldiers while also turning world opinion against Moscow. In that sense, both the claimed massacre and the attack succeeded as they were both immediately linked to Russia by hostile media.

But that is where the stories began to unravel. Russian soldiers left the town of Bucha on March 30^th. Two days later, Bucha was occupied by the Ukrainian Azov Brigade with the objective of finding and removing ‘traitors’. The Azov Brigade has been plausibly described as extremely nationalist and even as neo-Nazi. On April 2/3 the first video was published that showed freshly killed men laying on the streets of Bucha, several of them displaying white arm bands that were presumably used for signaling to departing Russian forces that they were “friendlies.” The “west” and Ukrainian officials immediately called those dead the result of “Russian atrocities.”

Azov has reportedly shot men “fleeing” the combat zones as “traitors” and pledged no surrender to or collaboration with the Russians. It has credibly been responsible for atrocities committed against Russian ethnic Ukrainian citizens in the past. Going back to motive, it was definitely in the Ukrainian interest to kill a couple hundred of its own civilians to further demonize Putin and bring about a western direct military intervention, which is what Zelensky and his neocon advisers have been attempting to do. So, was it a false flag attack in which Ukrainian soldiers deliberately killed Ukrainian citizens so the deaths could be blamed on Russia?

And it also turned out that the missile used in the Kramatorsk Train station attack was of a type found in the Ukrainian arsenal, not that of Russia. A video report by Italy’s LA7 video channel was made by one of their teams inside Ukraine. They were one of first Western news teams to arrive at the alleged bombing site in Kramatorsk. At the time of the attack, numerous Ukrainian citizens were evacuating the city due to its proximity to fighting with Russian forces. Kramatorsk is the temporary seat of the administration of the Donetsk region because the city of Donetsk is in the hands of Russian affiliated Donbass militias and is not under the control of the Kiev based Ukrainian authorities.

The Italian film clip shows close-ups of the remains of the projectile that hit the building, which reveals that the serial number is that of the Tochka-U vehicle launched ballistic missile, which Kiev claimed was Russian, is actually far more plausibly Ukrainian. The clearly visible missile’s serial number appears as (Φ91579), and a comparison, admittedly made by Russian analysts, indicates that the missile belongs to the same series of weapons that have been fired against targets in the regions in the Donbass that are seeking union with Russia. They have been used against “Khartszsk in 04.09.2014 (rocket number ‘Φ15622’) and Tshevsky in 02.02.2015 (Rocket No. ‘Φ91565’), Lugvinova in 13.02.2015 (Missiles No. ‘Φ91566, Φ915527, Φ915328’), Perdiansk in 19.03.2022 (rocket no. ‘Φ915611’), and Militobol on 17.03.2022 (rocket no. ‘Φ915516’).” Furthermore, the missile in question is, according to the Kremlin, still in the Ukrainian arms inventory but considered obsolete by the Russian military.

But let’s think this through a little deeper. If the Russians truly want to blame the Ukrainians for killing other Ukrainians what better way to do it than to fake a missile launch using ordnance that is in operational use with the Ukrainian Army? There exist what are claimed to be eyewitness accounts of Russian troops using the Tochka inside Ukraine, though they come through Ukrainian controlled sources, but the Kremlin very likely has some Tochkas sitting around in various arsenals even if they are no longer suitable for front line use. And the serial numbers, which are painted on or appear on attached labels, can be changed.

The fundamental problem is not the possible use of a false flag in what is already a war between two neighboring states. It should be expected, when convenient for either side. The complication is that actually authenticable information about what is taking place is rare and the two sides are both lying and spinning like crazy to convince an international audience as well as their own citizenry of a “truth” which is actually often closer to fiction. As has long been recognized, the first victim of a war is the truth.

So forget about false flags and other tactical contrivances as well as the lies coming out of Washington and Western Europe. The sad part is that the focus on possible atrocities has reversed what the United States and the west should be doing, i.e. creating an environment where there can be a ceasefire leading to genuine negotiations that can bring about a status quo acceptable to both Russia and Ukraine. Instead, Washington and its allies seem intent on funneling ever more weapons into Ukraine based on a steady stream of questionable accounts of Russian war crimes, a guarantee that the fighting will go on for many more months, if not longer.

Witness for example the line being promoted by the notorious retired US Army Colonel Alexander Vindman, formerly of the US National Security Council but Ukrainian-Jewish born and an enthusiastic advocate of war with Russia. He argues based on the claimed Russian crimes that

“Despite what people like Tucker Carlson tell you, there are not two sides to the story of Russia’s war on Ukraine. It IS a story of good and evil. All you have to do is look at the massacre of civilians in Bucha, the missile strike on Kramatorsk railway station, or the countless other atrocities being committed by Russian forces across Ukraine to see it clearly.”

Vindman’s thinking comes out of the neocon playbook of a proper role of the United States as the rule maker for the entire world without any accountability for its own action. He can easily be dismissed as little more than a partisan prepared to go with any half-truth as long as it denigrates Russia. Whatever one feels about “gallant little Ukraine” versus the Russian bear, this kind of advocacy by someone wrapping himself in the Ukrainian flag provides no real rationale for the United States to get involved in a war in which it has no real interest and which will almost certainly turn out badly for all involved. Unfortunately, Vindman is not the only public figure who suffers from precisely the same tunnel vision.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

The government of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson joined an ignominious collective last week in announcing a refugee deal with Rwanda, seedily entitled the UK-Rwanda Migration Partnership.  The fact that such terms are used – a partnership or deal connotes contract and transaction – suggests how inhumane policies towards those seeking sanctuary and a better life have become.

In no small measure, the agreement between London and Kigali emulates the “Pacific Solution”, a venal response formulated by the Australian government to deter asylum seekers arriving by boat and create a two-tiered approach to assessing asylum claims.  The centrepiece of the 2001 policy was the transfer of such arrivals to Pacific outposts in Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island and Nauru, where they would have no guarantee of being settled in Australia.  Despite being scrapped by the Labor Rudd government at the end of 2007, the policy was reinstated by a politically panicked Prime Minister Julia Gillard in 2012 under what was billed the Pacific Solution Mark II.

The victory of the conservative Liberal-National Party coalition in the 2013 elections led to its most cruel manifestation.  Operation Sovereign Borders, as the policy came to be known, cast a shroud of military secrecy over intercepting boats and initiating towaways.  The crude, if simple slogan popularised by the Abbott government, was “Stop the Boats”.  Such sadistic policies were justified as honourable ones: preventing drownings at sea; disrupting the “people smuggler model”.  In truth, the approach merely redirected the pathways of arrival while doing little by way of discouraging the smugglers.

More measures followed: the creation of a specifically dedicated border force kitted out for violence; the passage of legislation criminalising whistleblowers for revealing squalid, torturous camp conditions featuring self-harm, suicide and sexual abuse.

Inspired by such a punitive example despite its gross failings and astronomical cost (the Australian policy saw a single asylum seeker’s detention bill come to $AU3.4 million), the Johnson government has been parroting the same themes in what the UK Home Office called, misleadingly, a “world first partnership” to combat the “global migration crisis”.  The partnership sought to “address” the “shared international challenge of illegal migration and break the business model of smuggling gangs.”  Not once did it refer to the right to asylum which exists irrespective of the mode of travel or arrival.

Johnson also reiterated the theme of targeting those “vile people smugglers” who have turned the ocean into a “watery graveyard”, failing to mention that such individuals serve to also advance the right of seeking asylum.  More on point was his remark that compassion might be “infinite but our capacity to help people is not.”

If one is to believe the Home Office, sending individuals to Rwanda or, as it puts it, “migrants who make dangerous or illegal journeys” is a measure of some generosity.  Successful applicants “will then be supported to build a new and prosperous life in one of the fastest-growing economies, recognised globally for its record on welcoming and integrating migrants.”

Rwanda is certainly going to benefit with a generous bribe of £120 million, slated for “economic development and growth”, while it will also receive funding for “asylum operations, accommodation and integration similar to the costs incurred in the UK for these services.”

The country will also take some pride in sidestepping its own less than savoury human rights records, which boasts a résumé of extrajudicial killings, torture, unlawful or arbitrary detention, suspicious deaths in custody and an aggressive approach to dissidents.  In 2018, Rwanda security forces were responsible for killing at least 12 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo.  They had been protesting a cut to their food rations.  Various survivors were then arrested and prosecuted for charges ranging from rebellion to “spreading false information with intent to create a hostile international opinion against the Rwandan state.”

The UK-Rwandan partnership also perpetuates old libels in discrediting cross-Channel crossers as purely economic migrants who somehow forfeit their right to fair assessment.  Emilie McDonnell of Human Rights Watch UK dispels this myth, noting Home Office data and information gathered via freedom of information laws that 61% of migrants who travel by boat are likely to remain in the UK after claiming asylum.  The Refugee Council, in an analysis of Channel crossings and asylum outcomes between January 2020 and June 2021, noted that 91% of those making the journey came from 10 countries where human rights abuses are acknowledged as extensive.

Refugees and asylum seekers are the stuff of political value, rising and falling like stocks depending on the government of the day.  For Johnson, the agreement with Rwanda was also a chance to preoccupy the newspaper columns and an irate blogosphere with another talking point.  “Sending refugees to Rwanda,” claimed The Mirror, “is the political equivalent of a distraction burglary, only less subtle and infinitely more criminal.”

The event in question supposedly warranting that hideous distraction was serious enough.  Johnson, along with his wife Carrie and UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak, were all found to have breached government COVID-19 emergency laws and fined by the police.  In the history books, this is already being written up as the “partygate affair”, which featured a number of socialising events conducted by staff as the rest of the country endured severe lockdown restrictions.  Those same history books will also note that the prime minister and chancellor are both pioneers in facing police-mandated penalties.

Johnson’s own blotting took place on June 19, 2020, when he held a birthday gathering in the Cabinet Room of 10 Downing Street.  “In all frankness, at that time,” he reasoned, “it did not occur to me that this might have been a breach of the rules”.  With such a perspective on legality and breaches, the Rwanda deal seems a logical fit, heedless of human rights, a violation of dignity, a potential risk to life and a violation of international refugee law.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

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***

The parliament of Pakistan recently ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan in a no-confidence vote. The reasons for the former cricket star’s political downfall are not entirely clear. His economic policies were a mixed bag at best, but he deserves credit for one thing: he’d taken a bold stand against international investment agreements that give transnational corporations excessive power over national governments.

In fact, Khan had begun a process of terminating 23 bilateral investment treaties (BITs) that allow corporations to sue governments in unaccountable supranational tribunals. Instead, he believed such disputes should be handled through local arbitration.

Khan had learned the hard way how these so-called “investor protection” agreements can tie the hands of government officials, limiting their ability to act in the public interest. In 2019, a year after Khan became Prime Minister, a tribunal (three private judges behind closed doors, to be clear) of the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) ordered Pakistan to pay an Australian mining company $6 billion in compensation for denying a mining permit on environmental grounds.

A similar suit by the same company, Tethyan Copper — a subsidiary of Canadian giant Barrick Gold, through a different tribunal under the International Chamber of Commerce brought the total amount Pakistan owed Tethyan to $11 billion.

The ICSID ruling concluded that Pakistan had violated a BIT with Australia by failing to provide Tethyan “fair and equitable treatment,” a vaguely worded obligation that corporate plaintiffs love to exploit. The tribunal also decided that denying the license for Tethyan’s Reko Diq gold and copper project was tantamount to “indirect expropriation” — never mind the fact that the Supreme Court of Pakistan had ruled the permit invalid because the company had violated national mining and contract laws.

ICSID’s response was to order Pakistan to draw billions of dollars from its public coffers to compensate Tethyan for their lost expected future profits. The company had only invested about $150 million in the project.

Khan’s government went to great lengths to reverse the decision, highlighting that the $6 billion ICSID award alone represented about 2 percent of its GDP, or 40 percent of its cash reserves in foreign currency. The government argued that international tribunals must realize that their decisions have an impact on state policies, including poverty alleviation. But the U.S. District Court, responsible for enforcing the ICSID ruling, declared that Pakistan’s hopes of annulling the award were nothing more than “wishful thinking.”

The ruling against Pakistan under this investor-state dispute settlement system is even more unfair as it came just after the IMF had approved a $6 billion loan to the country that imposes harsh austerity measures on public spending. To overcome this financial straitjacket, Pakistan had no choice but to give in to this concerted attack by financial institutions and international courts and the world’s second-largest gold mining company.

On March 20, Barrick Gold announced that it had reached a settlement with Pakistan that will allow the company to resume their controversial Reko Diq mining project in the province of Balochistan. This is a disturbing example of international investment treaties’ chilling effect on environmentally responsible policies and public interest regulations.

Other countries facing similar corporate lawsuits must pay special attention to this case. Mexico, for example, is being sued by the U.S. mining company Odyssey Marine Exploration for $3.54 billion. Filed before the ICSID in 2019 under the terms of NAFTA, the suit challenges Mexican authorities’ decision to deny a seabed mining permit to extract phosphate (used for fertilizers) in the Gulf of Ulloa, off the coast of Baja California Sur. The Puerto Chale Fishing Cooperative had strongly opposed the project, on the grounds that their members’ livelihoods depend on the marine areas and seafloor that Odyssey is intent on dredging.

After the company retaliated by bringing a claim to ICSID, the Fishing Cooperative and the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) attempted to submit an amicus curiae brief to share their concerns. They also argued that the decision by Mexico’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) to deny the exploitation permit was consistent with the precautionary principle recognized in national and international law. The ICSID tribunal refused to admit the brief. (https://bit.ly/3umy8dL)

In their recent report “A Sea of Trouble: Seabed Mining and International Arbitration in Mexico,” Jen Moore of the Institute for Policy Studies and Ellen Moore of Earthworks explain that such refusals are common in this arbitration system designed to favor transnational corporations. The majority of the panel, made up of highly paid corporate lawyers, essentially asserted that the cooperative’s contribution was “irrelevant.”

One of the three arbitrators, Phillippe Sands, did express a dissenting opinion. Not only should the cooperative be heard, Sands argued, but that the failure to admit its concerns exposes the failings of the arbitration system, with potentially far-reaching impacts on environmental protection policies in Mexico.

With Khan’s ouster in Pakistan, it’s unclear what will happen to his government’s efforts to withdraw from Bilateral Investment Treaties and the invest-state dispute settlement regime. But resisting this anti-democratic system should not be a partisan issue. All governments should have the authority to adopt economic measures in the public interest — without the threat of expensive corporate lawsuits.

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Updated and translated from the original Spanish version available in La Jornada.  

Manuel Pérez-Rocha is a researcher at the Institute for Policy Studies. Follow him on Twitter: @ManuelPerezIPS

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***

Information warfare remains active in Ukraine. There is strong controversy over the actual data of the conflict, with each side claiming a different number of deaths. Ukrainian and Western media outlets seem to be diminishing the seriousness of Kiev’s situation, trying to claim that there are few casualties. The objective appears to be to improve troops’ morale and show the world that the supposed “Ukrainian resistance” is “winning the war” against the “Russian invaders”. However, there does not seem to be any credibility in this type of narrative.

One of the most curious discussions about the Russian special military operation is the number of Ukrainian casualties. On Friday, April 15, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that Kiev had so far lost around 2,500 to 3,000 soldiers in combat. The number seems really small under the circumstances of the conflict, considering the combat scenes witnessed since February and the Russian victory in many confrontation situations, and this raises a number of questions as to why Kiev and its allies want to make it look like they have few casualties.

Since March, the mainstream media has changed its analysis perspective on the Ukrainian case, betting less and less on humanitarian speeches and endorsing a discourse that improves the morale of Kiev’s troops. Western media agencies confirm Zelensky’s data and point out that the supposed low number of deaths is due to the strength of the “Ukrainian resistance”, which would be hindering Russian plans and obtaining significant victories in the fighting situations.

Although unconvincing on a military level, this narrative praises Zelensky’s image, making him look like a “brave leader” and “military genius”, and the Ukrainian troops, who are seen as “strong and resilient”. This also garners international support, encourages the interest of mercenaries, and arouses the attention of oligarchs to financially support the confrontation, making them believe in a possible Ukrainian victory, which is virtually questionable.

However, what is most surprising about this issue is that the Ukrainian lies seem really blatant, considering that according to Moscow the number of Kiev agents killed by the Russian troops is much higher, exceeding 23,000 soldiers. This high level of discrepancy between the official data reveals that one side is necessarily very wrong in its analysis, possibly distorting data for propaganda purposes – and considering the current context this side seems to be the Ukrainian one, which intends to improve its morale in the face of an obvious defeat.

Russian Ministry of Defence spokesman Igor Konashenkov recently commented on the case revealing Moscow’s data about the conflict:

“The Russian Ministry of Defence has reliable figures on the true losses suffered by the Ukrainian Army, the National Guard and foreign mercenaries, which Zelensky is afraid to provide to the people of Ukraine. Today, its irretrievable losses amount to 23,367 people (…) In total, since the start of the special military operation, 134 Ukrainian aircraft, 460 drones, 246 anti-aircraft missile systems, 2,269 tanks and other armoured vehicles, 252 multiple launch rocket systems, 987 pieces of field artillery and mortars, as well as 2,158 special military vehicles have been destroyed”.

In addition, in a recent interview with CNN, Zelensky stated that Ukrainian forces would be willing to fight the Russians for the next “ten years”. According to him, Ukraine is determined to retake the entire length of its territory, which, in his opinion, includes the sovereign republics of the Donbass and Russian Crimea. He made it clear that Ukraine chose the path of confrontation and that it will not retreat before achieving its objectives using military force.

However, in his speech, he recognizes his country’s inability to carry out the conflict without Western help, which is why he urges his allies to send more and more weapons as soon as possible:

“We need the equipment today or tomorrow, not within two or three months (…) We want to liberate our country, to take back what belongs to us. We may be fighting with the Russian Federation for 10 years to take back what is ours. We may choose this path”.

To carry out his war plans, Zelensky must completely renounce any military realism. His tactic seems to be to garner more and more international support and funding to delay the defeat of the Maidan Junta as long as possible – not by chance he stated that he is willing to fight for ten years. To do this, he lies about the data of the conflict, making his financiers believe that it is profitable to invest in his possible victory.

However, it is clear for most experts on military issues that it is incredible for Ukraine to win a confrontation with Russia. Although Western countries send money, weapons, equipment and mercenaries, Russian military superiority remains undisputed. These resources only serve to prolong the conflict and delay the inevitable outcome of the success of the special military operation, and Moscow does not seem to be in a “rush” to declare victory.

The part that suffers the most from all this is the Ukrainian civil population, which does not have its “morale improved”, but, on the contrary, has its suffering prolonged by his war plans.

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Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

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***

Like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, propaganda is pouring out of the US that is shaping our perceptions of the war in Ukraine. It is produced by the CIA, it is pronounced by the State Department and it is published by the media. It is coming from everywhere.

The heroes and the villains were cast from the start. The media rewrote history and created the myth of the “unprovoked war.” As if Russia’s launching of an illegal war was not sufficient to cast them as the villain in our minds, the media everywhere added the adjective “unprovoked” to create the super-villain needed to produce the necessary support for the war. As if NATO had not broken its promise not to encroach on Russia’s borders. As if Russia’s security concerns had not been ignored. As if Russia has not been surrounded by military bases and missiles. As if Ukraine wasn’t being flooded with weapons. As if Yeltsin and Putin had not protested and drawn their red lines for years.

The heroes and villains were further developed and characterized by stories that came out of Ukraine in the early days of the war. On the first day of the war, a Russian ship aimed its guns at Snake Island and demanded the surrender of the Ukrainian forces. Establishing the roles of super-villain and super-hero in our minds, the Ukrainians bravely defied the Russians, and the Russians remorselessly murdered the Ukrainians. The Ukrainian guards “died heroically,” Zelensky said, promising that “All of them will be posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine.”

But the guards couldn’t be posthumously awarded anything because they weren’t dead. They were captured and released a few days later. But the characters had been cast in our minds. Not enough that the Ukrainians really were heroically defending their land against an illegal and villainous Russian assault, to produce the necessary war fervor, a super-villain was needed.

Only days later, a Russian warship was seriously damaged or destroyed by Ukrainian forces only, like the guards of Snake Island, to seemingly show up a few days later.

The western media would also continue to clean up the story and clarify the hero and the villain by erasing the Ukrainian ultranationalists from history and from the story, from their role in the Donbas to their role in 2019 of pressuring Zelensky out of making peace with Russia and signing the Minsk Agreement to their role today.

Then the US began to write the perfect super-villain for the perfect script and the perfect public perception. From the beginning, Russia was deliberately targeting civilians. Not just killing them like a villain, but deliberately killing them like a super-villain.

But a senior analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency leaked to Newsweek that, in the first month of the war, “almost all of the long-range strikes have been aimed at military targets.” A retired Air Force officer, working with a “large military contractor advising the Pentagon,” told Newsweek that “the Russian military has actually been showing restraint in its long-range attacks.” The advisor warned that “If we merely convince ourselves that Russia is bombing indiscriminately . . . then we are not seeing the real conflict.” The Newsweek article points out that the US dropped more missiles on the first day in Iraq in 2003 than Russia dropped on Ukraine in the first 24 days. “The vast majority of the airstrikes are over the battlefield, with Russian aircraft providing “close air support” to ground forces. The remainder – less than 20 percent, according to U.S. experts – has been aimed at military airfields, barracks and supporting depots.” The DIA analyst concluded that “that’s what the facts show. This suggests to me, at least, that Putin is not intentionally attacking civilians. . . . I know that the news keeps repeating that Putin is targeting civilians, but there is no evidence that Russia is intentionally doing so.”

More recently, a senior DIA official told Newsweek,

“It’s bad. And I don’t want to say it’s not too bad. But I can’t help but stress that beyond the clamor, we are not seeing the war clearly. Where there has been intense ground fighting and a standoff between Ukrainian and Russian forces, the destruction is almost total. But in terms of actual damage in Kyiv or other cities outside the battle zone, and with regard to the number of civilian casualties overall, the evidence contradicts the dominant narrative.”

According to Washington and the media, Russia was not only targeting civilians from the very beginning of the war, they were also planning possible chemical weapons attacks. President Biden, himself, claimed that Putin was considering using chemical weapons in Ukraine. But a “senior US defense official,” in a leak that was reported by Reuters on March 22, said that “There’s no indication that there’s something imminent in that regard right now.”

Two weeks later, “three US officials” told NBC News that “there is no evidence Russia has brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine.” It was disinformation intended, they said, “to deter Russia from using banned munitions.”

The disinformation campaign is being coordinated by the White House National Security Council. The released declassified information, the officials said, “wasn’t rock solid:” they were publicizing “low-confidence intelligence.” It was propaganda being used in the disinformation war against Russia. But that disinformation is being consumed by the US public and shaping its perceptions of the war to create the necessary war fervor.

The promised false flag attack against the Russian speaking people of the Donbas that would justify the Russian invasion and feature video of fake corpses, “never materialized.”

The US also tried to “get inside Putin’s head” and, perhaps more importantly, shape public perception in the West of a weak, incompetent and disconnected Putin, by releasing intelligence that discovered that Putin is being misled by his advisors about Russia’s military performance in Ukraine. While some officials said that intelligence was reliable, others said it “wasn’t conclusive – based more on analysis than hard evidence.” When questioned, Biden later classified it as “speculation” and “an open question.”

Another case of disclosing disinformation in an attempt to warn China, to negatively shape public perception of China and to continue to attempt to drive a wedge between Russia and China was the claim by US officials that Russia had asked China to supply weapons. European and US officials told NBC that that accusation “lacked hard evidence” and that, in fact, “there are no indications China is considering providing weapons to Russia.”

While US officials say the disinformation war is meant to deter Russian actions and to get inside Putin’s head, it is simultaneously being consumed by Americans and getting inside their heads, shaping their perceptions of Putin, Russia and the war.

The shaping of the American mind by the media has a long history in the CIA. In the first quarter century of the CIA, according to Carl Bernstein, “more than 400 American journalists . . . carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters.” Occasionally, “full‑time CIA employees masquerad[ed] as journalists abroad.” Cooperation included articles written by the CIA running almost word for word under columnists’ bylines and “planting misinformation advantageous to American policy.”

The disinformation war was not confined to new organizations. The Church Committee found that, by the end of 1967, the CIA had already subsidized the publication of well over one thousand books.

By 1955, the CIA was collaborating with Hollywood to shape the American mind through movies. In Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers, Joel Whitney says “the goal was ‘to insert in their scripts and in their action the right ideas with the proper subtlety’.” The Joint Chiefs of Staff plotted on how to insert those ideas and actually met with top Hollywood figures at the MGM Studios office of director John Ford. The CIA would go so far as to have operatives infiltrate Hollywood studios. Paramount Studios even had an executive and censor who was a CIA operative who made sure Paramount’s movies cut out any anti-American content or criticism of US foreign policy.

So, where’s the truth. For most Americans, being informed citizens of the world and informed participants in democracy means turning to the newspapers and news outlets. But those newspapers and news outlets are reporting disinformation emanating from the CIA, the State Department and the White House that is shaping the perceptions and the minds of the American people.

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Ted Snider has a graduate degree in philosophy and writes on analyzing patterns in US foreign policy and history.

Featured image is by Nathaniel St. Clair

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***

The Biden administration and its allies continue to use Russian President Vladimir Putin as the convenient excuse for their economic failures. The most recent falsehood is that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused March’s 8.5 percent year-over-year increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Prices were surging long before Russian troops entered Ukraine. Furthermore, Putin did not stop exporting food and gas; it was the Biden administration and Congress that imposed sanctions, making US consumers suffer additional price increases. The blame for the economic effects lies with the US government, not Russia.

The United States has for years been meddling in Ukraine’s affairs with the explicit goal of moving US and NATO military forces ever closer to Russia. The most notorious example was the 2014 US-orchestrated coup that overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected government.

Russia has a legitimate grievance over the US supporting expanding NATO to include Ukraine, despite the US having promised not to support expanding NATO beyond Germany’s borders during negotiations over how to end the Cold War. Foreign policy experts, including George Kennan, the architect of the Cold war “containment” strategy, warned that Russia would respond adversely to NATO expansion near Russia.

Before the Ukraine conflict, Biden and his fellow Democrats blamed price increases on “greedy” corporations, going so far as to claim that increasing antitrust prosecutions would somehow bring down prices. Then Putin became the new excuse.

The main culprit behind rising prices is neither Putin nor “greedy” corporations. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues are to blame. Starting in September 2019, when the Fed panicked over a spike in interest rates in the “repurchasing” market that banks use to give each other overnight loans, the Fed has engaged in an unprecedented spree of money creation. The Fed further stepped up its easy money and low, and even zero, interest rate policies in response to the lockdowns. Increasing prices are the direct result of the Fed’s policies.

The Fed is planning to try to tame prices by increasing interest rates and reducing its balance sheet. This will likely tip the economy into a recession. Increasing interest rates will also cause the federal government’s debt payments to increase, which is a reason the Fed will not increase rates to anywhere near where they would be in a free market.

The best-case scenario may be a return to 70s-style “stagflation.” The worst-case scenario is that the Fed’s failure to rein in inflation, fueled by Congress’s failure to stop spending, combined with the continued resentment over the US’s hyper-interventionist foreign policy, will cause a rejection of the dollar’s reserve currency status and lead to a major financial crisis. Such a crisis could result in widespread poverty, as well as violence, crackdowns on liberties, and even the rise of a totalitarian government.

The crisis could still be avoided, but only if Congress becomes serious about cutting spending, starting with the military industrial complex. Congress should also start to reform monetary policy by auditing the Fed, legalizing alternative currencies, and exempting precious metals and cryptocurrencies from all capital gains taxes. The welfare-warfare-fiat money system will end. What is not known is when it will end and whether it will be replaced by an even more authoritarian government or by a return to limited, constitutional government.

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Ukraine: The Fakes of Anti-Russian Propaganda

By Manlio Dinucci, April 18, 2022

The New York Times published on April 4 a satellite photo, dated March 19, showing a street in the Ukrainian city of Bucha strewn with corpses. The photo, disseminated by the mainstream on a global scale, was presented as evidence of a “war crime committed by Russian troops in Ukraine.”

Towards A New Global Financial System: Sergey Glazyev

By Pepe Escobar, April 18, 2022

The world’s new monetary system, underpinned by a digital currency, will be backed by a basket of new foreign currencies and natural resources. And it will liberate the Global South from both western debt and IMF-induced austerity.

Einstein and Freud’s ‘Why War?’ Revisited: Why Anti-War Efforts Go Nowhere

By Robert J. Burrowes, April 18, 2022

Of course, while an utterly inadequate analysis of what, fundamentally, is driving war is the critical foundation of the anti-war movement’s problems, it is still just one of the substantial range of problems it faces, some of which derive from this flawed analysis but others which a better analysis would expose.

Video: The Global Financial Revolution and The Great Reset: Banking Expert Ellen Brown

By Ellen Brown and Kristina Borjesson, April 18, 2022

Public banking expert Ellen Brown talks about her recent Global Research article, “The Coming Global Financial Revolution, Russia is Following America’s Playbook” in which she details the hidden history of decisions and actions taken by America’s leaders that resulted in the current global economic system; how Russia is emulating the US’s past actions; and how ultimately the coming multipolar global economic reset/revolution could yield positive outcomes for the U.S., including ending America’s oil wars and sparking a revival of the nation’s manufacturing sector.

US, EU Sacrificing Ukraine to ‘Weaken Russia’: Former NATO Adviser Jacques Baud

By Jacques Baud and Aaron Mate, April 18, 2022

As the Russia-Ukraine war enters a new phase, former Swiss intelligence officer, senior United Nations official, and NATO advisor Jacques Baudanalyzes the conflict and argues that the US and its allies are exploiting Ukraine in a longstanding campaign to bleed its Russian neighbor.

Why Food Prices Are Expected to Skyrocket

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, April 18, 2022

Food shortages and skyrocketing food prices now appear inevitable. The global food price index hit its highest recorded level in March 2022, rising 12.6% in a single month. On average, food prices were one-third higher than in March 2021. In the U.S., food prices rose 9% in 2021, and are predicted to rise another 4.5% to 5% in the next 12 months.

Ukraine Demands Its Troops to Fight to Death in Mariupol Despite Inevitable Capture

By Paul Antonopoulos, April 18, 2022

Although the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and other elements of the Ukrainian military are only holding onto a few key areas of Mariupol, Kiev stubbornly does not recognize their inevitable defeat in the port city. Kiev carefully hides its own losses and forces its troops to continue resisting and suffer unjustified losses despite not even having enough ammunition or infantry to continue the battle.

Our Case Against NATO: Africans and the Struggle Against Imperialism

By Abayomi Azikiwe, April 18, 2022

Two examples of repression and mass killings by countries in the aftermath of WWII were carried out in French-controlled Algeria and the British-dominated Gold Coast (later known as Ghana after independence in 1957). These acts by the colonial powers were designed to preserve imperialist rule in Africa. Both Britain and France were founding members of NATO.

Letter to the California Legislature. Say No to the COVID Tyranny Bills

By Margaret Anna Alice, April 18, 2022

Who is to decide what is “misinformation,” “disinformation,” “false,” “misleading,” or “harmful”? To claim the State has the right to override medically trained physicians is to subject medical science to political science, consequently putting not only individual patients but all of humanity at grave risk.

The Shanghai Covid Lockdown. Who Was Behind It?

By Emanuel Pastreich, April 18, 2022

Corporate newspapers and social media have been flooded with horrific images of the Shanghai lockdown for the last week, a massive enterprise that has confined millions of Chinese to their homes for weeks and has resulted in the implementation of severe restrictions on access to basic supplies.

Il New York Times ha pubblicato il 4 aprile una foto satellitare, datata 19 marzo, che mostra una strada della città ucraina di Bucha cosparsa di cadaveri. La foto, diffusa al mainstream su scala mondiale, è stata presentata quale prova di un “crimine di guerra commesso dalla truppe russe in Ucraina”. Un esame tecnico dimostra che la foto satellitare non è stata scattata il 19 marzo, quando le truppe russe si trovavano a Bucha, ma il 1° aprile, due giorni dopo che esse avevano lasciato la città. La data e l’ora esatta dell’immagine sono state calcolate dal programma SunCalc, in base all’angolo di inclinazione del Sole sopra l’orizzonte e quindi alla direzione delle ombre. Nell’immagine satellitare pubblicata dal NYT, l’angolo del Sole è di 42 gradi. Ciò significa che la foto satellitare è stata scattata alle 11:57 GMT del 1° aprile.

Inoltre, l’esame delle foto dei cadaveri effettuato da un esperto forense scopre vari indizi di una messinscena. Altri fondati dubbi sulla narrazione ufficiale del “massacro di Bucha” emergono dalla stessa cronologia degli eventi: il 30 marzo i soldati russi  lasciano Bucha,  il 31 marzo il Sindaco di Bucha lo conferma e non parla di morti, il 31 marzo i neonazisti del Battaglione Azov entrano a Bucha,  il 4 aprile viene pubblicata la foto satellitare con i cadaveri nelle strade. Inoltre, invece di conservare i corpi per poterli esaminare e appurare le cause della morte, essi vengono frettolosamente sepolti in una fossa comune dove rimangono per giorni. Vengono quindi riesumati per aprire una “indagine” e accusare la Russia di “crimine di guerra”.

Altre prove tecniche dimostrano la falsità della narrazione ufficiale della strage di Kramatorsk, attribuita alle truppe russe. Il numero di serie del missile Tochka-U che ha colpito la stazione ferroviaria di Kramatorsk, l’8 aprile 2022, è Ш91579 (in russo). Questo numero di serie contrassegna lo stock di missili Tochka-U in possesso dell’esercito ucraino. Solo le Forze Armate Ucraine hanno missili Tochka-U. La Russia non li ha dal 2019: sono stati tutti disattivati. Le Repubbliche Popolari di Donetsk e Lugansk non hanno né hanno mai avuto Tochka-U. 

La direzione del cono e la sezione di coda del missile che è atterrato sul terreno vicino alla stazione ferroviaria di Kramatorsk mostra chiaramente che è stato sparato dalla 19a Brigata Missilistica Ucraina, schierata vicino a Dobropolie a 45 km da Kramatorsk. In precedenza le Forze Armate Ucraine hanno usato missili Tochka-U della stessa serie come Ш915611 lanciati su Berdyansk e Ш915516 lanciato su Melitopol. Gli stessi missili sono stati usati contro Donetsk e Lugansk. Il 10 aprile, due giorni dopo la strage di Kramatorsk, l’Esercito ucraino ha lanciato due  missili a grappolo dello stesso tipo Tochka-U: uno contro Donetsk e uno contro Novoaydar (Repubblica Popolare di Lugansk).

Manlio Dinucci

 

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***

The world’s new monetary system, underpinned by a digital currency, will be backed by a basket of new foreign currencies and natural resources. And it will liberate the Global South from both western debt and IMF-induced austerity.

Sergey Glazyev is a man living right in the eye of our current geopolitical and geo-economic hurricane. One of the most influential economists in the world, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and a former adviser to the Kremlin from 2012 to 2019, for the past three years he has helmed Moscow’s uber strategic portfolio as Minister in Charge of Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).

Glazyev’s recent intellectual production has been nothing short of transformative, epitomized by his essay Sanctions and Sovereignty and an extensive discussion of the new, emerging geo-economic paradigm in an interview to a Russian business magazine.

In another of his recent essays, Glazyev comments on how “I grew up in Zaporozhye, near which heavy fighting is now taking place in order to destroy the Ukrainian Nazis, who never existed in my small Motherland. I studied at a Ukrainian school and I know Ukrainian literature and language well, which from a scientific point of view is a dialect of Russian. I did not notice anything Russophobic in Ukrainian culture. In the 17 years of my life in Zaporozhye, I have never met a single Banderist.”

Glazyev was gracious to take some time from his packed schedule to provide detailed answers to a first series of questions in what we expect to become a running conversation, especially focused to the Global South. This is his first interview with a foreign publication since the start of Operation Z. Many thanks to Alexey Subottin for the Russian-English translation.

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The Cradle: You are at the forefront of a game-changing geo-economic development: the design of a new monetary/financial system via an association between the EAEU and China, bypassing the US dollar, with a draft soon to be concluded. Could you possibly advance some of the features of this system – which is certainly not a Bretton Woods III – but seems to be a clear alternative to the Washington consensus and very close to the necessities of the Global South?

Glazyev: In a bout of Russophobic hysteria, the ruling elite of the United States played its last “trump ace” in the hybrid war against Russia. Having “frozen” Russian foreign exchange reserves in custody accounts of western central banks, financial regulators of the US, EU, and the UK undermined the status of the dollar, euro, and pound as global reserve currencies. This step sharply accelerated the ongoing dismantling of the dollar-based economic world order.

Over a decade ago, my colleagues at the Astana Economic Forum and I proposed to transition to a new global economic system based on a new synthetic trading currency based on an index of currencies of participating countries. Later, we proposed to expand the underlying currency basket by adding around twenty exchange-traded commodities. A monetary unit based on such an expanded basket was mathematically modeled and demonstrated a high degree of resilience and stability.

At around the same time, we proposed to create a wide international coalition of resistance in the hybrid war for global dominance that the financial and power elite of the US unleashed on the countries that remained outside of its control. My book The Last World War: the USA to Move and Lose, published in 2016, scientifically explained the nature of this coming war and argued for its inevitability – a conclusion based on objective laws of long-term economic development. Based on the same objective laws, the book argued the inevitability of the defeat of the old dominant power.

Currently, the US is fighting to maintain its dominance, but just as Britain previously, which provoked two world wars but was unable to keep its empire and its central position in the world due to the obsolescence of its colonial economic system, it is destined to fail. The British colonial economic system based on slave labor was overtaken by structurally more efficient economic systems of the US and the USSR. Both the US and the USSR were more efficient at managing human capital in vertically integrated systems, which split the world into their zones of influence. A transition to a new world economic order started after the disintegration of the USSR. This transition is now reaching its conclusion with the imminent disintegration of the dollar-based global economic system, which provided the foundation of the United States global dominance.

The new convergent economic system that emerged in the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and India is the next inevitable stage of development, combining the benefits of both centralized strategic planning and market economy, and of both state control of the monetary and physical infrastructure and entrepreneurship. The new economic system united various strata of their societies around the goal of increasing common wellbeing in a way that is substantially stronger than the Anglo-Saxon and European alternatives. This is the main reason why Washington will not be able to win the global hybrid war that it started. This is also the main reason why the current dollar-centric global financial system will be superseded by a new one, based on a consensus of the countries who join the new world economic order.

In the first phase of the transition, these countries fall back on using their national currencies and clearing mechanisms, backed by bilateral currency swaps. At this point, price formation is still mostly driven by prices at various exchanges, denominated in dollars. This phase is almost over: after Russia’s reserves in dollars, euro, pound, and yen were “frozen,” it is unlikely that any sovereign country will continue accumulating reserves in these currencies. Their immediate replacement is national currencies and gold.

The second stage of the transition will involve new pricing mechanisms that do not reference the dollar. Price formation in national currencies involves substantial overheads, however, it will still be more attractive than pricing in ‘un-anchored’ and treacherous currencies like dollars, pounds, euro, and yen. The only remaining global currency candidate – the yuan – won’t be taking their place due to its inconvertibility and the restricted external access to the Chinese capital markets. The use of gold as the price reference is constrained by the inconvenience of its use for payments.

The third and the final stage on the new economic order transition will involve a creation of a new digital payment currency founded through an international agreement based on principles of transparency, fairness, goodwill, and efficiency. I expect that the model of such a monetary unit that we developed will play its role at this stage. A currency like this can be issued by a pool of currency reserves of BRICS countries, which all interested countries will be able to join. The weight of each currency in the basket could be proportional to the GDP of each country (based on purchasing power parity, for example), its share in international trade, as well as the population and territory size of participating countries.

In addition, the basket could contain an index of prices of main exchange-traded commodities: gold and other precious metals, key industrial metals, hydrocarbons, grains, sugar, as well as water and other natural resources. To provide backing and to make the currency more resilient, relevant international resource reserves can be created in due course. This new currency would be used exclusively for cross-border payments and issued to the participating countries based on a pre-defined formula. Participating countries would instead use their national currencies for credit creation, in order to finance national investments and industry, as well as for sovereign wealth reserves. Capital account cross-border flows would remain governed by national currency regulations.

The Cradle: Michael Hudson specifically asks that if this new system enables nations in the Global South to suspend dollarized debt and is based on the ability to pay (in foreign exchange), can these loans be tied to either raw materials or, for China, tangible equity ownership in the capital infrastructure financed by foreign non-dollar credit?

Glazyev: Transition to the new world economic order will likely be accompanied by systematic refusal to honor obligations in dollars, euro, pound, and yen. In this respect, it will be no different from the example set by the countries issuing these currencies who thought it appropriate to steal foreign exchange reserves of Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Afghanistan, and Russia to the tune of trillions of dollars. Since the US, Britain, EU, and Japan refused to honor their obligations and confiscated the wealth of other nations which was held in their currencies, why should other countries be obliged to pay them back and to service their loans?

In any case, participation in the new economic system will not be constrained by the obligations in the old one. Countries of the Global South can be full participants of the new system regardless of their accumulated debts in dollars, euro, pound, and yen. Even if they were to default on their obligations in those currencies, this would have no bearing on their credit rating in the new financial system. Nationalization of extraction industry, likewise, would not cause a disruption. Further, should these countries reserve a portion of their natural resources for the backing of the new economic system, their respective weight in the currency basket of the new monetary unit would increase accordingly, providing that nation with larger currency reserves and credit capacity. In addition, bilateral swap lines with trading partner countries would provide them with adequate financing for co-investments and trade financing.

The Cradle: In one of your latest essays, The Economics of the Russian Victory, you call for “an accelerated formation of a new technological paradigm and the formation of institutions of a new world economic order.” Among the recommendations, you specifically propose the creation of “a payment and settlement system in the national currencies of the EAEU member states” and the development and implementation of “an independent system of international settlements in the EAEU, SCO and BRICS, which could eliminate critical dependence of the US-controlled SWIFT system.” Is it possible to foresee a concerted joint drive by the EAEU and China to “sell” the new system to SCO members, other BRICS members, ASEAN members and nations in West Asia, Africa and Latin America? And will that result in a bipolar geo-economy – the West versus The Rest?

Glazyev: Indeed, this is the direction where we are headed. Disappointingly, monetary authorities of Russia are still a part of the Washington paradigm and play by the rules of the dollar-based system, even after Russian foreign exchange reserves were captured by the west. On the other hand, the recent sanctions prompted extensive soul searching among the rest of the non-dollar-block countries. western ‘agents of influence’ still control central banks of most countries, forcing them to apply suicidal policies prescribed by the IMF. However, such policies at this point are so obviously contrary to the national interests of these non-western countries that their authorities are growing justifiably concerned about financial security.

You correctly highlight potentially central roles of China and Russia in the genesis of the new world economic order. Unfortunately, current leadership of the CBR (Central Bank of Russia) remains trapped inside the intellectual cul-de-sac of the Washington paradigm and is unable to become a founding partner in the creation of a new global economic and financial framework. At the same time, the CBR already had to face the reality and create a national system for interbank messaging which is not dependent on SWIFT, and opened it up for foreign banks as well. Cross-currency swap lines have been already set up with key participating nations. Most transactions between member states of the EAEU are already denominated in national currencies and the share of their currencies in internal trade is growing at a rapid pace.

A similar transition is taking place in trade with China, Iran, and Turkey. India indicated that it is ready to switch to payments in national currencies as well. A lot of effort is put in developing clearing mechanisms for national currency payments. In parallel, there is an ongoing effort to develop a digital non-banking payment system, which would be linked to gold and other exchange-traded commodities – the ‘stablecoins.’

Recent US and European sanctions imposed on the banking channels have caused a rapid increase in these efforts. The group of countries working on the new financial system only needs to announce the completion of the framework and readiness of the new trade currency and the process of formation of the new world financial order will accelerate further from there. The best way to bring it about would be to announce it at the SCO or BRICS regular meetings. We are working on that.  

The Cradle: This has been an absolutely key issue in discussions by independent analysts across the west. Was the Russian Central Bank advising Russian gold producers to sell their gold in the London market to get a higher price than the Russian government or Central Bank would pay? Was there no anticipation whatsoever that the coming alternative to the US dollar will have to be based largely on gold? How would you characterize what happened? How much practical damage has this inflicted on the Russian economy short-term and mid-term?

Glazyev: The monetary policy of the CBR, implemented in line with the IMF recommendations, has been devastating for the Russian economy. Combined disasters of the “freezing” of circa $400 billion of foreign exchange reserves and over a trillion dollars siphoned from the economy by oligarchs into western offshore destinations, came with the backdrop of equally disastrous policies of the CBR, which included excessively high real rates combined with a managed float of the exchange rate. We estimate this caused under-investment of circa 20 trillion rubles and under-production of circa 50 trillion rubles in goods.

Following Washington’s recommendations, the CBR stopped buying gold over the last two years, effectively forcing domestic gold miners to export full volumes of production, which added up to 500 tons of gold. These days the mistake and the harm it caused are very much obvious. Presently, the CBR resumed gold purchases, and, hopefully, will continue with sound policies in the interest of the national economy instead of ‘targeting inflation’ for the benefit of international speculators, as had been the case during the last decade.

The Cradle: The Fed as well as the ECB were not consulted on the freeze of Russian foreign reserves. Word in New York and Frankfurt is that they would have opposed it were they to have been asked. Did you personally expect the freeze? And did the Russian leadership expect it?

Glazyev: My book, The Last World War, that I already mentioned, which was published as far back as 2015, argued that the likelihood of this happening eventually is very high. In this hybrid war, economic warfare and informational/cognitive warfare are key theaters of conflict. On both of these fronts, the US and NATO countries have overwhelming superiority and I did not have any doubt that they would take full advantage of this in due course.

I have been arguing for a long time for the replacement of dollars, euro, pounds, and yen in our foreign exchange reserves with gold, which is produced in abundance in Russia. Unfortunately, western agents of influence which occupy key roles at central banks of most countries, as well as rating agencies and key publications, were successful in silencing my ideas. To give you an example, I have no doubt that high-ranking officials at the Fed and the ECB were involved in developing anti-Russian financial sanctions. These sanctions have been consistently escalating and are being implemented almost instantly, despite the well-known difficulties with bureaucratic decision making in the EU.  

The Cradle: Elvira Nabiullina has been reconfirmed as the head of the Russian Central Bank. What would you do differently, compared to her previous actions? What is the main guiding principle involved in your different approaches?

Glazyev: The difference between our approaches is very simple. Her policies are an orthodox implementation of IMF recommendations and dogmas of the Washington paradigm, while my recommendations are based on the scientific method and empirical evidence accumulated over the last hundred years in leading countries.

The Cradle: The Russia-China strategic partnership seems to be increasingly ironclad – as Presidents Putin and Xi themselves constantly reaffirm. But there are rumbles against it not only in the west but also in some Russian policy circles. In this extremely delicate historical juncture, how reliable is China as an all-season ally to Russia?

Glazyev: The foundation of Russian-Chinese strategic partnership is common sense, common interests, and the experience of cooperation over hundreds of years. The US ruling elite started a global hybrid war aimed at defending its hegemonic position in the world, targeting China as the key economic competitor and Russia as the key counter-balancing force. Initially, the US geopolitical efforts were aiming to create a conflict between Russia and China. Agents of western influence were amplifying xenophobic ideas in our media and blocking any attempts to transition to payments in national currencies. On the Chinese side, agents of western influence were pushing the government to fall in line with the demands of the US interests.

However, sovereign interests of Russia and China logically led to their growing strategic partnership and cooperation, in order to address common threats emanating from Washington. The US tariff war with China and financial sanctions war with Russia validated these concerns and demonstrated the clear and present danger our two countries are facing. Common interests of survival and resistance are uniting China and Russia, and our two countries are largely symbiotic economically. They complement and increase competitive advantages of each other. These common interests will persist over the long run.

The Chinese government and the Chinese people remember very well the role of the Soviet Union in the liberation of their country from the Japanese occupation and in the post-war industrialization of China. Our two countries have a strong historical foundation for strategic partnership and we are destined to cooperate closely in our common interests. I hope that the strategic partnership of Russia and the PRC, which is enhanced by the coupling of the One Belt One Road with the Eurasian Economic Union, will become the foundation of President Vladimir Putin’s project of the Greater Eurasian Partnership and the nucleus of the new world economic order.

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This article was originally published on The Cradle.

Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture in Moscow. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Cradle

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According to many Western commentators—from the center-left to the far-right—China is the major threat to democracy, climate, peace and sovereignty in the 21st century. It is an issue where Donald Trump and Joe Biden are completely aligned. On the other side of the Atlantic too, Nigel Farage and Keir Starmer are closing ranks behind a sinophobic story-line.

Supposedly “critical” voices add that the Chinese behaviour “is not that different from the European imperialism of the 16th to 19th century.” And so the West projects its own image onto China. In reality, the alarmism surrounding China distracts from the ongoing Western imperialism that still holds the greatest power on the world stage.

Western powers remain dominant

It is true that China, a country of 1.4 billion inhabitants, has become the largest economy in the world. But there is a great deal of nuance to be added to that statement. For instance, foreign multinational corporations dominate 40% of the Chinese domestic market and even capture 53% of the added value within the Chinese export market. In the age of multinationals, GDP is clearly not a good parameter for measuring economic power.

A study looking at the profits of the 2,000 largest corporations in 2013 confirmed that U.S. multinationals continued to dominate 12 corporate sectors (reaping over 40% of total profits); Japan dominated one sector and China zero.

The same pattern holds for the total wealth of countries. In 2020, the Global North still owned 71% of global assets whilst China owned 17.9%, almost exactly the same as its share of the world population. In other words, Western power has not so much declined as it has globalized.

Exploiting the Global South

More important than the size of the economy is its structure. The most significant mechanisms for extracting rents from the Global South are illegal financial flows, profit repatriation by multinationals and unequal trade, totaling about $3 trillion of stolen wealth every year.

By comparison: That is 20 times the annual development aid that rich countries “donate,” but in reality abuse, for political influence at the UN and for deals surrounding fishing rights and deadly border controls. In all three financial flows, China is a victim not an exploiter.^[1]

If we look at foreign investments, China is equally irrelevant. In 2018, China suffered a net loss of $63 billion in foreign investment, meaning that China lost more to foreign investors than it gained from its own investments abroad. On all seven continents, the Global North as a whole remains the largest foreign investor.

The military threat of the West

Western countries have an estimated 935 military bases in other countries and colonies. China has eight, even if we include its bases in the South China Sea. Outside of its own region, China has only one military base—in Djibouti, where there are also American, French, Japanese, Italian and Saudi-Arabian military installations.

Yet the West is directly threatening China. The United States and the United Kingdom have 290 military bases encircling China and the U.S. is threatening with a nuclear “first-strike capability.” The military budget of NATO is $1.2 trillion, six times that of China. So who is actually threatening whom here?

U.S. military bases around China, and world. [Source: inf.news]

The West is the biggest claimant of debts

The Western press loves to repeat that China is “the largest bilateral creditor” to developing countries. But that is an utterly meaningless statement. In 2020, according to World Bank data, China had $171 billion in outstanding debts with low and middle income countries. Rich countries and the multilateral banks where they have a majority stake (the IMF, World Bank, ADB and IADB) had a total combined debt claim that was almost ten times bigger—$1,100 billion.

More importantly, the private sector—which demands vastly higher interest rates—was responsible for an even greater sum: $2,825 billion in outstanding loans and bonds. The ten largest private creditors in the Global South are all banks and investment funds located in Western Europe and the United States. So who is really driving the debt crisis?

Debt imperialism

An oft-heard accusation against China is that it abuses its loans to confiscate harbors and other sovereign assets in low-income countries. Yet a comprehensive investigation by Johns Hopkins University of more than a thousand Chinese loan commitments between 2000 and 2019 found the accusation to be patently untrue. China never even went to a judge to demand payment, let alone confiscate sovereign assets.

Compare that with reality: one French billionaire who single-handedly controls 16 harbors in West Africa and 12 African countries that are still using a French-controlled currency. Can the real imperialists please stand up?

Multiple studies have shown that Chinese loans are often used as an alternative to the IMF and World Bank. These Western-dominated banks do actually make harsh demands when they lend out money, mostly surrounding budget cuts in health care, education and social welfare.

In many cases the Chinese loans actually help low and middle-income countries evade Western pressure. Chinese finance and trade, for example, was crucial for the Pink Tide in Latin America, when several left and anti-imperialist governments made major strides in the eradication of poverty. That is the real story behind the so-called “debt-trap diplomacy.”

Western coups and electoral interference

There is also a perception that China, contrary to the West, does not make any demands on human rights and democracy when it comes to diplomatic and financial support. That is partially true, because China has an official policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. The silver lining, of course, is that China also does not bomb or overthrow other governments to bring “freedom and democracy.”

Since the end of the Second World War the United States has attempted to overthrow 71 foreign governments and has interfered in 81 foreign elections, the latter already before the turn of the millenium. And such practices have certainly not ended. CIA agents brag about them openly.

The list of foreign electoral interventions between 1946 and 2000 comes from a comprehensive study by Dov Levin. The list of (attempted) coups since WW2 comes from William Blum based on his book Killing Hope. To that list I added Turkey (1980), Burkina Faso (1987) Azerbaijan (1993), Palestine (2006-7), Bolivia (2008), Ecuador (2010), Paraguay (2012), Brazil (2016), Nicaragua (2018), Bolivia (2019) and Venezuela (ongoing).

Source: sundial.csun.edu

Conversely, against China there are only five “accusations”—often with very little evidence—of foreign electoral interference and China has not overthrown any government, with the exception of Tibet. When it comes to respecting the sovereignty of other countries, China is clearly doing a better job.

The United States is the biggest threat to democracy

Furthermore, the idea that the West values human rights and democracy simply does not align with the facts. The United States has military ties to 74% of all dictators around the world. And mind you: That is based on the categorization of Freedom House, a notoriously pro-American think tank that is almost completely funded by the U.S. government.

Even the closest allies of the United States—with a mutual defense agreement, such as NATO—have been responsible for a disproportionate decline in democracy over the last ten years, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

It is no wonder that a global survey last year found that the United States is perceived as the biggest threat to democracy.

The Chinese people do not want Western meddling

Various academic studies—from Western universities such as Harvard—have shown that the Chinese government enjoys overwhelming support among the Chinese people, more than 95 percent. That is vastly superior to all Western countries and not actually that surprising.

The Chinese government has lifted 620 million people out of poverty since 1981—based on an “ethical poverty line” of 7.40 dollars a day—whilst the number of people in poverty elsewhere has increased by 1.3 billion.

Source: bbc.com

The zero-Covid strategy of China—so often dismissed as an authoritarian show of force in the West—also enjoys enormous support. China has the lowest covid death rate in the world. Even in absolute terms, China has one-seventh the number of deaths than Belgium, a country of little more than 11 million people.

Because of its targeted and proactive policies only a little more than one in five Chinese people have endured a lockdown. And this was often for a limited amount of time. The longest lockdown of a major city was in Wuhan, where the pandemic began, and lasted for two months.

Living standards in China have continued to climb, even during the pandemic. That is why China is one of the few countries with a mortality deficit during the pandemic. A major achievement that is also combined with large-scale exports of vaccines to low and middle-income countries, leaving Western Covid aid completely in the dust.

If you follow the news about China, you might get the idea the the population needs to be saved by the West. But that is complete nonsense. Poll after poll shows that the majority of Chinese people view the West as a threat.

Sanctions are insincere, brutal and counterproductive

Of course, none of this means that China does not abuse human rights, especially against a number of minorities. But the Western condemnation of a (cultural) genocide in Xinjiang—a severe accusation that is questioned by experts—has absolutely nothing to do with the otherwise very real oppression of the Uyghurs.

In Yemen a physical genocide has been unfolding since 2015—fully perpetrated with Western arms—already with 259,000 murdered children under the age of five, primarily starved by a humanitarian blockade and systematic bombardments against civilian targets. That is a genocide that could stop tomorrow, if only there were enough political will in Europe and the United States. The West’s supposed “concern” for human rights is a complete farce.

Source: melgurtov.com

Nearly all countries that do not receive military support, training or weapons from the United States are sanctioned. It is a brutal method that has already killed an estimated 100,000 people in Venezuela. Yet sanctions are also counterproductive, because the anger of the population logically turns against a clear external enemy.

According to a comprehensive study of 115 sanction regimes, “external pressure is more likely to enhance the nationalist legitimacy of rulers than to undermine it.” Sanctions are clearly not humanitarian interventions. They are better understood as a collective punishment (a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention) against any country that refuses to submit to Western hegemony.

Colonization of the atmosphere

Just as important as the economic colonization of the Global South, is the colonization of the atmosphere. Because of the enormous greenhouse gas emissions emanating from the Global North, low and middle-income countries have very little space to improve their living standards. A recent study in Nature confirmed that the Global North was responsible for 92% of the climate catastrophe that is engulfing the planet.

The study uses a simple method: Every country has a right to the same amount of emissions in proportion to its average population size since 1850. If you go over your fair share, you have a climate debt. Based on a 1.5 degrees carbon budget—in line with the Paris accords—China will likely never exceed its fair share. Most Western countries, on the other hand, exceeded their fair share decades ago.

In 2018 the IPCC of the UN determined that a maximum of 580 Gton of CO2 could be emitted to stand a decent chance (50%) of not exceeding 1.5 degrees of warming. The Indian scientists Jayaraman and Kanitkar subsequently calculated when the Global North should achieve zero emissions to stay within their fair share of that remaining budget, discarding for the moment all previous emissions.

Based on these calculations Jayaraman and Kanitkar came up with the year 2025 for the United States, 2031 for Japan and 2033 for the European Union. These power blocs—to this day—have much higher per capita emissions than the rest of the world. Regardless, they have all set their carbon neutrality targets at 2050.

The historic climate debt preceding 2018 can subsequently be paid off through climate finance for the Global South. Based on a $135 carbon price—the minimum for achieving 1.5 degrees of warming, according to the IPCC—the rich G7 countries have a climate debt of $114 trillion, provided they fulfill the ambitious targets of the Indian scientists.

Oxfam research shows that G7 countries provided only $17.5 billion in climate support in 2017-18. At that rate, we will have paid off our debts by the year 6500, when the planet is long cooked. So who is really responsible for the climate catastrophe?

Western imperialism is still the issue

Compared to the Global North, China remains a relatively poor country. Its per capita GDPlies between that of Botswana, Suriname, the Dominican Republic and Thailand. This makes the constant Western finger-pointing at China, seemingly for every problem in the world, all the more perverse.

The facts show: Even in an absolute sense, the West still has the most financial, economic and military power. The West supports most dictatorships, overthrows most governments and interferes in the most foreign elections. The West is complicit in genocide, colonizes the atmosphere and punishes any country that refuses to bow to its dictates.

The International People’s Assembly has issued a comprehensive plan to challenge this global medical, financial and food apartheid. Join them. And do not let the alarmism surrounding China distract you. The fight for a just world begins at home and nowhere else.

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Chris de Ploeg is an investigative journalist, grassroots organizer, speaker, moderator and author of Ukraine in the Crossfire. Chris was a lead organizer in the historic student movement of 2015 that occupied the humanities faculty and the managerial headquarters of the University of Amsterdam for nearly two months, under the banners of De Nieuwe Universiteit and the University of Colour. Chris can be reached at [email protected].

Notes

1. The nuance is that China (like other middle-income countries) can mitigate some of their losses to the West through unequal trade with low-income countries. However, studies that take this into account show that China continues to suffer net losses due to the structure of international trade. In other words, whatever China gains from unequal trade with Africa and South Asia is essentially siphoned off to the Global north, and then some. 

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***

 

On March 19 John Philpot, a Montreal lawyer who successfully defended an accused at the ad hoc UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, was awarded the Ingabire Umuhoza Prize for Democracy and Peace in Brussels.

He spoke to the Taylor Report about the war and human tragedy that struck Rwanda not just in 1994 but in the years preceding when the RPF invaded from Uganda under a Ugandan general, Paul Kagame. Since the RPF seizure of power there has been no justice in the country, as witnessed by the long prison term served by the democracy advocate Victoire Ingabire.

Philpot’s acceptance speech stressed that African countries are again speaking up and challenging the neo-colonial order that aided and abetted Paul Kagame.

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The New York Times published on April 4 a satellite photo, dated March 19, showing a street in the Ukrainian city of Bucha strewn with corpses. The photo, disseminated by the mainstream on a global scale, was presented as evidence of a “war crime committed by Russian troops in Ukraine.”

A technical examination shows that the satellite photo was not taken on March 19, when the Russian troops were in Bucha, but on April 1, two days after they left the city.

Screenshot of image 

The exact date and time of the image were calculated by the SunCalc program, based on the Sun’s angle of inclination above the horizon and thus the direction of the shadows. In the satellite image published by the NYT, the Sun’s angle is 42 degrees. This means that the satellite photo was taken at 11:57 GMT on April 1.

Examination of the photos of the bodies by a forensic expert uncovers several clues to a staged event.

Other well-founded doubts on the official narrative of the “Bucha massacre” emerge from the same chronology of events: on March 30 the Russian soldiers leave Bucha, on March 31 the mayor of Bucha confirms this and does not mention any dead bodies, on March 31 the neo-Nazis of the Azov Battalion enter Bucha, on April 4 the satellite photo with the corpses in the streets is published. Moreover, instead of preserving the bodies in order to examine them and ascertain the causes of death, they are hastily buried in a mass grave where they remain for days. They are then exhumed to open an “investigation” and accuse Russia of a “war crime”.

Other technical evidence demonstrates the falsity of the official narrative of the Kramatorsk massacre, attributed to Russian troops. The serial number of the Tochka-U missile that hit the Kramatorsk train station on April 8, 2022 is Ш91579 (in Russian). This serial number marks the stock of Tochka-U missiles in the possession of the Ukrainian Army. Only the Ukrainian Armed Forces have Tochka-U missiles. Russia has not had them since 2019: they have all been deactivated. The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics do not have and have never had Tochka-U.

The direction of the cone and the tail section of the missile that landed on the ground near the Kramatorsk train station clearly shows that it was fired from the 19th Ukrainian Missile Brigade, deployed near Dobropolie 45 km from Kramatorsk. Previously the Ukrainian Armed Forces used Tochka-U missiles of the same series — Ш915611 Ш915516 — which were launched on Berdyansk and Melitopol. The same missiles were used against Donetsk and Lugansk. On April 10, two days after the Kramatorsk massacre, the Ukrainian Army launched two cluster missiles of the same Tochka-U type: one against Donetsk and one against Novoaydar (Lugansk People’s Republic).

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This article was originally published in Italian on byoblu.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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***

In 1932, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein exchanged letters, later published under the title ‘Why War?’ See ‘Why War? An exchange of letters between Freud and Einstein’.

 

However, whatever insight these two giants of an earlier era brought to our understanding of war, the reality is that a great deal has been learned since they corresponded. 

Sigmund Freud. Image Right

Nevertheless, since the emergence of an identifiable, organized anti-war movement during World War I which has grown to include a diverse range of activists and organizations from across the political spectrum, as well as peace and conflict resolution scholars from various disciplines, there is little evidence that this movement, or any of the many organizations within it, has been learning from its failures by systematically undertaking or commissioning further research to understand the phenomenon of war more completely and then devising a strategy to end it based on that learning.

Hence, during its existence for more than 100 years, the organized anti-war movement – and the subsequently developed peace movement with its broader agenda – has had minimal impact in preventing or halting particular military conflicts, including wars, and zero impact in ending war generally, as the record testifies.

And so, even today, war continues in several countries in West Asia (the Middle East), Africa, elsewhere and, more recently, in Ukraine with the antiwar movement again demonstrating its ineffectiveness and, in the case of Ukraine, failing to comprehend the deeper agenda behind what is taking place in that country.

See ‘The War in Ukraine: Understanding and Resisting the Global Elite’s Deeper Agenda’.

Of course, while an utterly inadequate analysis of what, fundamentally, is driving war is the critical foundation of the anti-war movement’s problems, it is still just one of the substantial range of problems it faces, some of which derive from this flawed analysis but others which a better analysis would expose. These include, for example, an understanding of why the fear of most of those within the anti-war movement is preventing the movement from mustering the commitment and courage that will be necessary if we are to undertake the many actions necessary to end war. In essence, fear makes most participants in the movement happy to complain about war but not take action themselves (or take action that has zero or minimal impact).

As Daniel Berrigan noted in his 1969 book No Bars to Manhood: ‘the waging of war, by its nature, is total – but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial.’

This cowardice means that a large proportion of the anti-war movement contents itself with a range of powerless measures – usually extending no further than signing petitions, issuing lameduck ideologically-oriented statements,writing articles, organizing conferences, issuing calls for negotiations or appeals to politicians – all invariably devoid of emotional and geopolitical reality as well as realistic measures to avert/halt the latest war.

This might include advocacy of measures, such as those developed under the guise of international humanitarian law, in relation to ‘outlawing war’ or outlawing particular weapons systems, despite the obvious observation that these legal constraints are routinely violated with impunity by any military power, starting with the United States, or non-state actor that is unconstrained by questions of legality.

Beyond this, ‘action’, when it is taken, is usually confined to conducting (notoriously ineffective) street protests or employing other tactics devoid of strategic impact in the context (of ending war). As former US Secretary of State Alexander Haig once noted about a massive anti-war demonstration: ‘Let them march all they want, as long as they continue to pay their taxes.’ See Alexander Haig. As a four-star general, Haig, not regarded as the most intelligent Secretary of State in US history, certainly understood that tactical choice is a question of strategy. Most activists have no idea.

So if we are to end war as a phenomenon in human affairs, or even meaningfully attempt to prevent or end a particular war, we need to do a number of things. Most fundamentally, we must start with a sound understanding of what causes violence to begin with because war does not emerge from a vacuum. War, when all is considered, is just another manifestation of violence, like everything from violence against women to economic exploitation to environmental destruction.

And if we are not able or willing to investigate and understand what is causing violence, and address this fundamental cause as part of our strategy, then our other efforts to end the manifestations of violence, including war, must all be in vain. Again, as the record readily testifies.

What Causes Violence?

So what is the cause of violence? Here is what 41 years (1966-2007) of concerted effort taught me.

Perpetrators of violence learn their craft in childhood. If you inflict violence on a child, they learn to inflict violence on others. The political leaders who decide to wage war, the military leaders who plan and conduct it, as well as the soldiers, sailors and aircraft personnel who fight war each suffered violence as a child. The terrorist suffered violence as a child. The neo-Nazi suffered violence as a child. The individual who inflicts violence on his (or her) partner suffered violence as a child. The corporate executive who exploits working class people and/or those who live in Africa, Asia or Central/South America suffered violence as a child. The racist or religious bigot suffered violence as a child. The individual who perpetrates violence in the home, in the schoolyard or on the street suffered violence as a child. The individual who overconsumes, or even consumes certain products and/or otherwise destroys the biosphere, suffered violence as a child.

So let me illustrate this point, in a very simplified way, by briefly explaining the parenting experience of a neo-Nazi. This individual has been terrorized by their parents and/or other significant adults in their life into projecting their fear onto particular groups of human beings and into believing that violence is a morally correct and superior way of dealing with these ‘different’ people. But for a much fuller and more nuanced explanation of this point, see the sections headed ‘The Emotional Profile of Archetype Perpetrators of Violence’ and ‘The Spectrum of the Violent Personality’ in ‘Why Violence?’

If we want to end violence in all of its manifestations, structural and otherwise, locally and globally, then we must finally end our longest and greatest war: the adult war on children. And here is an additional incentive: if we do not tackle the fundamental cause of violence, then our combined and unrelenting efforts to tackle all of its other symptoms must ultimately fail. And extinction at our own hand – by nuclear war or other means – is inevitable.

How can I claim that violence against children is the fundamental cause of all other violence? Consider this. There is universal acceptance that behaviour is shaped by childhood experience. If it was not, we would not put such effort into education and other efforts to ‘socialize’ children to ‘fit into’ their society. And this is why many psychologists have argued that exposure to war toys and violent video games shapes attitudes and behaviours in relation to violence.

But it is far more complex than this and, strange though it may seem, it is not just the ‘visible’ violence (such as hitting, screaming at and sexually abusing) that we normally label ‘violence’ that causes the main damage, although this is extremely damaging. The largest component of damage arises from the ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that we adults unconsciously inflict on children during the ordinary course of the day. Tragically, the bulk of this violence occurs in the family home and at school.

See ‘Why Violence?’ and

‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

So what is ‘invisible’ violence? It is the ‘little things’ we do every day, partly because we are just ‘too busy’. For example, when we do not allow time to listen to, and value, a child’s thoughts and feelings, the child learns to not listen to themSelf thus destroying their internal communication system. When we do not let a child say what they want (or ignore them when they do), the child develops communication and behavioral dysfunctionalities as they keep trying to meet their own needs (which, as a basic survival strategy, they are genetically programmed to do).

When we blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie to, bribe, blackmail, moralize with and/or judge a child, we both undermine their sense of Self-worth and teach them to blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie, bribe, blackmail, moralize and/or judge.

The fundamental outcome of being bombarded throughout their childhood by this ‘invisible’ violence is that the child is utterly overwhelmed by feelings of fear, pain, anger and sadness (among many others). However, mothers, fathers, teachers, religious figures and other adults also actively interfere with the expression of these feelings and the behavioral responses that are naturally generated by them and it is this ‘utterly invisible’ violence that explains why the dysfunctional behavioral outcomes actually occur.

For example, by ignoring a child when they express their feelings, by comforting, reassuring or distracting a child when they express their feelings, by laughing at or ridiculing their feelings, by terrorizing a child into not expressing their feelings (for example, by screaming at them when they cry or get angry), and/or by violently controlling a behavior that is generated by their feelings (for example, by hitting them, restraining them or locking them into a room), the child has no choice but to unconsciously suppress their awareness of these feelings.

However, once a child has been terrorized into suppressing their awareness of their feelings (rather than being allowed to have their feelings and to act on them) the child has also unconsciously suppressed their awareness of the reality that caused these feelings. This has many outcomes that are disastrous for the individual, for society and for nature because the individual will now easily suppress their awareness of the feelings that would tell them how to act most functionally in any given circumstance and they will progressively acquire a phenomenal variety of dysfunctional behaviors, including some that are violent towards themself, others and/or the Earth.

From the above, it should also now be apparent that punishment should never be used. ‘Punishment’, of course, is simply one of the words we use to obscure our awareness of the fact that we are using violence. Violence, even when we label it ‘punishment’, scares children and adults alike and cannot elicit a functional behavioural response.

See ‘Punishment is Violent and Counterproductive’ and

‘The Rule of Law: Unjust and Violent’.

If someone behaves dysfunctionally, they need to be listened to, deeply, so that they can start to become consciously aware of the feelings (which will always include fear and, often, terror) that drove the dysfunctional behaviour in the first place. They then need to feel and express these feelings (including any anger) in a safe way. Only then will behavioural change in the direction of functionality be possible.

See ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’.

‘But these adult behaviors you have described don’t seem that bad. Can the outcome be as disastrous as you claim?’ you might ask. The problem is that there are hundreds of these ‘ordinary’, everyday behaviors that destroy the Selfhood of the child. It is ‘death by a thousand cuts’ and most children simply do not survive as Self-aware individuals. And why do we do this? As mentioned above, we do it so that each child will fit into our model of ‘the perfect citizen’: that is, obedient and hardworking student, reliable and pliant employee/soldier, and submissive law-abiding citizen (that is, one who pays their taxes, including those for war, and votes and/or lobbies politicians rather than acting powerfully themSelf).

The bottom line is simple: As parents, teachers, religious figures and adults generally, we want the child to be obedient to our commands, and not powerfully able to act in accord with their own Self-will. And we achieve this outcome by terrorizing the child into doing what we want rather than nurturing the child’s innate capacity to listen, deeply, to themSelf in order to follow their own will.

Moreover, once we destroy the Selfhood of a child, it has many flow-on effects. For example, once you terrorize a child into accepting certain information about themSelf, other people and the state of the world – with the bulk of this information mediated by elite agents including education systems, the entertainment industry and the corporate media – the child becomes unconsciously fearful of dealing with new information, especially if this information is contradictory to what they have been terrorized into believing. As a result, the child will unconsciously dismiss new information, no matter how truthful, out of hand.

In short, the child has been terrorized in such a way that they are no longer capable of learning (or their learning capacity is seriously diminished by excluding any information that is not a simple extension of what they already ‘know’). If you imagine any of the bigots you know, you are imagining someone who is utterly terrified. But it’s not just the bigots; virtually all people are affected in this manner making them incapable of responding adequately to new (or even important) information. This is one explanation why some people are ‘climate deniers’, most people do nothing in response to the climate catastrophe and even those people who do take action usually do so ineffectively.

See ‘The Global Climate Movement is Failing: Why?’

But the same can be said for those working to end war – see ‘The War to End War 100 Years On: An Evaluation and Reorientation of our Resistance to War’ – end the nuclear weapons race or engage in other struggles, including liberation struggles, that are vital parts of the global struggle to create a more peaceful, just and sustainable human culture.

See ‘Why Activists Fail’.

And to briefly put this issue in the current global context, the vast bulk of the human population, including most of those individuals whom society would regard as ‘highly intelligent’, has been readily terrorized into believing that they are threatened by a pathogenic virus (labeled ‘SARS-CoV-2’) when there is no documented, scientific proof that such an entity as a pathogenic virus even exists – see ‘Dismantling the Virus Theory – The “measles virus” as an example’ and What Really Makes You Ill? Why everything you thought you knew about disease is wrong – and certainly no documented scientific proof that a virus labeled SARS-CoV-2 exists.

See ‘COVID-19: The virus does not exist – it is confirmed!’

and ‘Statement On Virus Isolation (SOVI)’.

And for an account of researcher Christine Massey’s fruitless search over the course of more than a year to find evidence of an isolated virus, via Freedom of Information requests to health/science institutions all over the world, see

‘177 health/science institutions globally all failed to cite even 1 record of “SARS-COV-2” purification, by anyone, anywhere, ever’.

Despite this, the vast bulk of the human population has been terrorized into accepting a series of medical intrusions (including lockdowns, PCR tests, mask-wearing and gene-altering injectables) when, in fact, there is no documented, scientific proof that (assuming there was a ‘pathogenic virus’) lockdowns, PCR tests, mask-wearing or ‘vaccines’ even ‘work’ and/or extensive documentation of their harm. See, for example,

‘And How Are the Children? Lockdowns, Massive Fear, Deaths from Suicides and Drug Abuse’,

‘The WHO Confirms that the Covid-19 PCR Test is Flawed: Estimates of “Positive Cases” are Meaningless.

The Lockdown Has No Scientific Basis’, ‘Conclusion Regarding Masks: They Do Not Work’,

‘Masks “don’t work,” are damaging health and are being used to control population: Doctors panel’,

‘The Truth about the Covid-19 Vaccine’,

‘A Final Warning to Humanity’, ‘COVID Shots to “Decimate World Population,” Warns Dr. Bhakdi’ and

‘20 Facts about Vaccination Your Doctor Forgot To Tell You’.

And because the fear generated by the elite-driven ‘virus’/injectable narrative has been so debilitating and thus engendered a high level of obedience by the population at large, it is a rare individual who has investigated both the shortcomings in this narrative and the horrific agenda that this narrative is concealing, let alone identified a powerful strategy to resist it. See ‘We Are Human, We Are Free’.

So, to return to the focus of this article, let me briefly reiterate this vital point: The essence of what human beings call ‘socialization’ is the process by which each child is terrorized in such a way that they are no longer capable of learning or their learning capacity is seriously diminished.

The multifaceted violence inflicted throughout childhood and adolescence ensures that the adult who emerges is suppressing awareness of an enormous amount of fear, pain, sadness and anger (among many other feelings) and must live in delusion to remain unaware of these suppressed feelings. This ensures that, as part of their delusion, the individual develops a strong sense that what they are doing already is functional and working (no matter how dysfunctional and ineffective it may actually be) while not investigating the existence of evidence that might contradict their delusion and/or unconsciously suppressing awareness of any evidence they come across that does contradict it. They do this because, unconsciously, people learn to identify obedience with ‘functional and working’ (because they do not get punished for being obedient). See

‘Why Violence?’,

‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’,

‘Do We Want School or Education?’,

‘Love Denied: The Psychology of Materialism, Violence and War’ and

‘Human Intelligence or Human Awareness?’

Just one critically important outcome of this terrorization process is that a significant proportion of the human population is effectively insane, and this certainly includes the Global Elite and those primary elite agents on which it relies to generate and maintain wars. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

Another critically important outcome of this terrorization process is that the international conflict resolution architecture – which is essentially a legal framework – does not take emotional factors into account. Hence it is not capable of resolving conflicts in any meaningful way. This is why negotiations often go nowhere, particularly in a timeframe that would avert adverse outcomes. And why ‘agreements’ that are reached are utterly superficial. The fundamental drivers of the conflict – invariably including suppressed terror, self-hatred and anger which are often unconsciously projected at the other party – are never addressed and will continue to manifest as violence in various forms, even if military violence is ended in a particular context. See ‘Challenges for Resolving Complex Conflicts’.

So if we want a powerfully effective anti-war movement (or peace movement, environmental movement, social justice movement….) then we need Self-aware individuals who can think, plan and act powerfully as part of strategically-oriented organizations to achieve ambitious longer-term goals. Such as ending the institution of war.

Anything less will fail. Again, as the record demonstrates.

So what can we do?

Ending war is possible. But it will take a courageous, sophisticated, strategic effort, given how deeply violence is embedded into the human ‘socialization’ process which makes war just one of the many approved violent behaviours in which adults are expected and encouraged to participate, beginning with paying taxes to finance it.

So while it is possible to end war, this won’t be happening any time soon.

And it can’t happen until we commit ourselves to eliminating violence against children so that human society creates adults who are psychologically whole and powerfully able to participate in conflict without resorting to violence to ‘resolve’ it.

Nevertheless, in parallel with efforts to eliminate violence against children, those powerful enough can also participate in a comprehensive strategy to end war as explained on the ‘Nonviolent Strategy’ website, starting with this list of ‘Strategic Goals to End War’. This is extrapolated from a book which explained why a strategy of nonviolent defense, understood and implemented by sufficient committed and organized individuals, is strategically superior to any military strategy.

See The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach.

Or, if you want to participate in a strategy to end a particular war, such as that in Ukraine, particularly given the possibility of it morphing into a longer term insurgency – see ‘Ukraine And The New Al Qaeda’ – you can read how to do so here: Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy.

But, as explained above, precisely because of their socialization experience during childhood, most of those who would identify as ‘anti-war’ are simply too frightened to act powerfully in resisting it. Hence, war will continue until we address its root cause: violence against children.

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Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is [email protected] and his website is here.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Public banking expert Ellen Brown talks about her recent Global Research article, “The Coming Global Financial Revolution, Russia is Following America’s Playbook” in which she details the hidden history of decisions and actions taken by America’s leaders that resulted in the current global economic system; how Russia is emulating the US’s past actions; and how ultimately the coming multipolar global economic reset/revolution could yield positive outcomes for the U.S., including ending America’s oil wars and sparking a revival of the nation’s manufacturing sector.

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This interview was originally published on The Whistleblower Newsroom.

Featured image is a screenshot from the video

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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As the Russia-Ukraine war enters a new phase, former Swiss intelligence officer, senior United Nations official, and NATO advisor Jacques Baud analyzes the conflict and argues that the US and its allies are exploiting Ukraine in a longstanding campaign to bleed its Russian neighbor.

Guest: Jacques Baud. Former intelligence officer with the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service who has served in a number of senior security and advisory positions at NATO, the United Nations, and with the Swiss military.

Transcript

AARON MATÉ:  Welcome to Pushback.  I’m Aaron Maté.  Joining me is Jacques Baud.  He has served in a number of senior security and advisory positions at NATO, the UN, and with the Swiss military.  He is also a former strategic intelligence officer with the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service.  Jacques, thank you for joining me.

JACQUES BAUD:  I thank you for inviting me.

AARON MATÉ:  Let me just start by asking you to talk more about your background and how it has informed your visibility into the crisis in Ukraine.

JACQUES BAUD:  Well, as you just said, I’m a strategic intelligence officer.  I used to be in charge of the Warsaw Pact forces in strategic…that was during the Cold War, but still, I have a good visibility on what’s going on in Eastern Europe.  I used to speak and read Russian as well, so that gives me some access to some documents.  And recently I had been seconded to NATO as head of the struggle against proliferation of small arms.  And in that capacity, I was involved in several projects from 2014 onwards with NATO in Ukraine.  And so, I know the context quite well.  I was also monitoring the possible influx of small armaments in the Donbas in 2014.  And I have also worked—because in my previous assignment in the UN, I used to work on the restoration of armored forces, so when the Ukrainian armed forces got some problems with personnel issues, with suicide, with all these kind of things that you had in 2014, also problems in recruiting military—I was asked to participate on the NATO side on several projects in restoring Ukrainian armed forces.  And so that’s a little bit, in a nutshell, my background regarding this area.

AARON MATÉ:  You’ve written a lengthy article which I will link to in the show notes for this segment, and you lay out the causes of the Ukraine conflict in three major areas.  There is the strategic level, the expansion of NATO; the political level, which is what you call the Western refusal to implement the Minsk agreements; and operationally, the continuous and repeated attacks on the civilian population of the Donbas over the past years and the dramatic increase in late February 2022.

Let me ask you to start there.  Talk about what you call the dramatic increase on civilians inside the Donbas in February, the period that led to the Russian invasion, immediate period, and how this escalation of attacks, as you say, helped lead to this war, this Russian invasion.

JACQUES BAUD:  Well, I think we have to understand, as you know, that the war in fact hasn’t started on 24 February this year.  It started already in 2014.  But I think that the Russians always hoped that this conflict could be solved on a political level, in fact; I mean the Minsk agreements and all that.  So, basically what led to the decision to launch an offensive in the Donbas was not what happened since 2014.  There was a trigger for that, and the trigger is two things; I mean, it came in two phases, if you want.

The first is the decision and the law adopted by [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy in March 2021—that means last year—to reconquer Crimea by force, and that started a build-up of the Russian armored for…not the Russian, [rather] the Ukrainian armored forces in the southern parts of the country.  And so, I think the Russians were perfectly aware of this build-up.  They were aware that an operation was to be launched against the Republics of the Donbas, but they did not know when, and, of course, they were just observing that, and then came the real trigger.

You may remember that—I think it was on the 16th of February—Joe Biden, during a press conference, told that he knew that the Russians would attack.  And how would he know that?  Because I still have some contacts, and nobody actually thought that the Russians—before end of January, beginning of February—I think nobody thought that the Russians would attack Ukraine.  So, there must have been something that made Biden aware that the Russians would attack.  And this something, in fact, is the intensification of the artillery shelling of the Donbas starting on the 16th of February, and this increase in the shelling was observed, in fact, by the [Border] Observer Mission of the OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe], and they recorded this increase of violation, and it’s a massive violation.  I mean, we are talking about something that is about 30 times more than what it used to be, because the last eight years you had a lot of violations from both sides, by the way.  But suddenly on the 16th of February you had a massive increase of violation on the Ukrainian side.  So, for the Russians, Vladimir Putin in particular, that was the sign that the operation—the Ukrainian operation—was about to start.

And then everything started; I mean, all the events came very quickly.  That means that if we look at the figures, you can see that there’s, as I said, a massive increase from the 16th-17th, and then it reached kind of a maximum on the 18th of February, and that was continuing.

And the Russian parliament, the Duma, also was aware of this possible offensive, and they passed a resolution asking Vladimir Putin to recognize the independence of the two self-proclaimed Republics in the Donbas.  And that’s what Putin decided to do on the 21st of February.  And just after adopting the decrees, the law recognizing the independence of the two Republics, Vladimir Putin signed a friendship and assistance agreement with those two Republics.  Why did he do that?  So that would allow the Republics to ask for military help in case of attack.  And that’s why, on the 24th of February when Vladimir Putin decided to launch the offensive, it could invoke Article 51 of the UN Charter that provides for assistance in case of attack.

AARON MATÉ:  And as you noted, the OSCE documented a big increase in ceasefire violations, artillery firing on the rebel-held side, but do you think, based on what you observed of the positioning of Ukrainian troops, do you think that the threat of an imminent invasion or assault by the Ukrainian forces was real?  Can you gauge that from how they were positioned on the other side of the front line?

JACQUES BAUD:  Yes.  Absolutely.  I mean, we had reports, and those reports were available during the last couple of months.  Since last year we knew that the Ukrainians were building up their forces in the south of the country, not on the eastern border with Russia but on the border with the contact line with Donbas.  And, as a matter of fact, as we have seen from the 24th of February, the Russians had almost no resistance in the start of the offensive, especially in the north.  And so, they could, what they have done since then, they could surround the Ukrainian forces in the south, in the southeast part of the country—that means between the two Republics of the Donbas and the Ukraine mainland, if you want.  And that’s where the bulk of the Ukrainian forces are today.  And according to the…that’s exactly the Russian doctrine to fight, I mean operational doctrine.  Their main offensive was on the south, clearly, because the objective stated by Vladimir Putin—we can probably come back on these details later on—but this was demilitarization and denazification.

Both objectives, in fact, were about to be done or to be reached in the south of the country, and that’s where the main efforts of the offensive was done.  In the offensive order, the effort against Kiev is a so-called secondary effort, and it had, as a fact, you had two functions basically.  First of all, to put some pressure on the political leadership in Kiev because the name of the game is to bring the Ukrainians to the negotiations.  That was the first objective of this second effort.

The second objective of this second effort was to bind or to pin down the rest of the Ukrainian armed forces so that they could not reinforce the main forces which are in the Donbas area.  And that worked quite well.  So that means that the Russians could surround, as I said, the main forces, the bulk of the armed forces—the Ukrainian armed forces.  Once they have achieved that they could withdraw some troops from Kiev, and that’s what they have done since end of March.  They have pulled several units in order to reinforce what they want; I mean their own forces to carry on under the main battle in the Donbas area.  So now they are pulling, and they have pulled these troops from the Kiev area, and these troops will now help to flank for the vanguard, the offensive against the main forces in the Donbas.  And that’s what some called the ‘mother of all battles’ that is currently going on in the Donbas area, where you have—nobody knows exactly the number of Ukrainian troops; estimates vary from sixty thousand to eighty thousand who are surrounded—and the forces would be cut in smaller cauldrons and then destroyed or neutralized.

AARON MATÉ:  It’s pretty clear to me that Zelenskyy’s government had no interest in serious diplomacy on all the critical issues that could have avoided a war, and I think the main factor is what I presume to be US pressure behind the scenes, which we can’t fully prove now.  But I imagine evidence of that might come out later.  And certainly, the open hostility of Ukraine’s far right, who essentially threatened Zelenskyy’s life if he made peace with Russia.  And these threats have dogged him throughout his presidency and continued right up to the eve of the invasion, and it led to people like his top security official saying in late January that the implementation of the Minsk accords would lead to Ukraine’s destruction—after Zelenskyy was elected on a platform of implementing Minsk—and that carried over to the final talks on implementing the Minsk accords that were brokered by Germany and France.

At those talks in February, Zelenskyy’s government all of a sudden refused to even speak to the representatives of the rebels, which makes an accord possible.  And meanwhile you had developments like this, which we just learned about from The Wall Street Journal, which was that the German chancellor [Olaf] Scholz on February 19th told Zelenskyy that, quote, “Ukraine should renounce its NATO aspirations and declare neutrality as part of a wider European security deal between the West and Russia.”  And this pact Scholz proposed would be signed by Biden and Putin, but Zelenskyy rejected this—rejected out of hand.

But my question is, because I think it’s pretty conclusive that the Zelenskyy-Ukraine side sabotaged diplomacy, but what about Russia?  Do you think Russia exhausted all of its diplomatic options to avoid a war?  For example, why not go to the UN and ask for a peacekeeping force in the Donbas?  And second of all, if the aim is to protect the people of the Donbas, why invade far beyond the Donbas and not just go there?

JACQUES BAUD:  Well, I think the Russians have totally lost faith in the West.  I think that’s the main thing.  They don’t trust the West anymore, and that’s why I think now they rely on a total victory on the military side in order to have some benefits in the negotiation.

I think Zelenskyy…I’m not sure exactly if he’s so reluctant to have peace.  I think he cannot do it.  I think from the very beginning he was caught between his…remember that he was elected with the idea of achieving peace in the Donbas.  That was his objective; that was his program as president.

But I think the West—and I would say the Americans and the British didn’t want this peace to occur.  And of course, the Germans and the French who were the guarantors of the Minsk agreement for the Ukrainian side, they never really implemented this—their function.  I mean, they have never done their job, clearly.  And especially France, which is simultaneously a member of the Security Council.  Because I will just remind you that the Minsk agreements were also part of a resolution of the Security Council.  So, meaning that they have not only the signature of the different parties that was done in Minsk, but you have also the members of the Security Council who were responsible for implementation of the agreement, and nobody wanted to have this agreement made.  So that means that, I think, there was a lot of pressure on Zelenskyy so that he wouldn’t even talk to the representatives of the two breakaway Republics.

And after that we have seen, by the way, that we have several indications that Zelenskyy was not completely, or is not completely, in control of what’s going on in Ukraine.  I think the extreme, let’s say, nationalist extreme right—I don’t know exactly what is the right term because it’s a mixture of everything—but these forces definitely prevent him, or prevented him, so far to do anything.  And we can see also that he’s back and forth regarding peace.  As soon as he started, you may remember that at the end of February, as soon as Zelenskyy indicated that he might be willing to start negotiations, this was the time where these negotiations were to take place in Belarus.  Within hours after Zelenskyy decided that, the European Union came with a decision providing for half a billion arms to Ukraine, meaning that the Americans, certainly, but I think the West as a whole, made every possible effort to prevent a political solution to the conflict, and I think the Russians are aware of that.

Now we have also to understand that the Russians have a different understanding of how to wage a war on the Western powers, especially the US.  That means that in the West we tend to, if we negotiate, we negotiate up to a certain point and then negotiations stop, and we start war.  And that’s war, period.  In the Russian way of doing things, it’s different.  You start a war, but you never leave the diplomatic track, and you go on both ways, in fact.  You put mental pressure and you try to achieve an objective, also with diplomatic means.  This is very much a Clausewitzian approach to war—when [Prussian general and military theorist Carl von] Clausewitz, as you know, defined war as the continuation of politics with other means.

That’s exactly how the Russians see that.  That’s why during the whole offensive, and even at the very beginning of the offensive, they started, or they indicated they were willing, to negotiate.  So, the Russians certainly want to negotiate, but they don’t trust the Western countries—I mean the West at large—to facilitate that negotiation.  And that’s the reason why they didn’t come to the Security Council.  By the way, they know that, probably, because, as you know, this physical war that we witness now is part of a broader war that was started years ago against Russia, and I think, in fact, Ukraine is just…I mean, nobody is interested in Ukraine, I think.  The target, the aim, the objective is to weaken Russia, and once it will be done with Russia, they will do the same with China, and you can already see.  I mean, we have seen that now, the Ukrainian crisis has overshadowed the rest, but you could have a very similar scenario happening with Taiwan, for instance.  So, the Chinese are aware of that.  That’s the reason why they don’t want to give up their, let’s say, relationship with Russia.

Now, the name of the game is weakening Russia, and you know that there have been several studies done by the Rand Corporation on extending Russia, overextending Russia, and so on, and where the whole scenario is…

AARON MATÉ:  Just to explain that for people who aren’t familiar with it, Rand is a Pentagon-type think tank, and they did a study in 2019 looking at all the different ways in which the US could overextend and unbalance Russia, and the top option was to send weapons to Ukraine to fuel a conflict there that could draw Russia in, which is exactly what’s happened.

JACQUES BAUD:  Absolutely.  And I think that this is a complete design for weakening Russia, and that’s exactly what we see unfolding right now.  We could have anticipated that, and I think Putin anticipated that.  And I think he understood that, if on the end of February, I mean, on the 24th of February, or let’s say just before because he had to make the decision before, but in the days before deciding on the offensive, he understood that he could not do nothing.  He had to do something.  The Russian public opinion would never have understood why Russia would remain just observing the Donbas Republics being invaded or destroyed by Ukraine.

So, nobody would have understood that.  So, he was obliged to go.  And then, I think…and that’s what, if you remember what he said on the 24th of February, he said regardless of what he would do, the amount of sanctions he will receive would be the same.  So basically, he knew that the slightest intervention in the Donbas would trigger a massive launch of sanctions, so he knew that.  So, then he decided, ‘Okay, then I have to go for the maximal option,’ because one option would have been just to reinforce, don’t mess with the Republics and just defend the Republics on the line of contact.  But he decided to go for the larger option, which is to destroy those forces that threatened Donbas.

And that’s where you have those two objectives.  Demilitarization, which is not the whole demilitarization of all Ukraine, but it was to suppress the military threat that was on the Donbas; that’s the main objective of that.  There’s a lot of misunderstanding of what he said and, of course, he was not very clear, but that’s part of the Russian way of communicating and doing things.  They want to keep options open, and that’s the reason why they say the minimum things and they just say what’s necessary.  And this is exactly what Putin meant on the 21st, what he said about suppressing the military threat against the Donbas.  Denazification had nothing to do with killing Zelenskyy or destroying the leadership in Kiev.  That was definitely not the idea, and, as a matter of fact, as I said, the main way they conceive war is to combine a physical action and diplomatic action.  So that means that in such a way of doing you have to keep a leadership and you have to keep them in order to negotiate, and that’s why there was no way you would kill or destroy the leadership in Kiev.

So, denazification was basically not about the 2.5 percent of the extreme right in Kiev.  That was about the 100 percent of Azov people in Mariupol and Kharkov, and this kind of thing.  So, we tend to misunderstand because some people said, ‘Well, but, you know, why denazify?  Because there is only 2.5 percent of political rightwing parties, only 2.5 percent or something like that, so it’s meaningless.  So, why denazify?  It makes no sense.’  But it was not about that.  It was definitely about those groups that were in fact recruited from 2014 by the Ukrainians in order to, let’s say, I would say pacify or control.  I don’t know exactly what’s the right word for that, but to fight in Donbas.  These people were extremists, fanatics, and these people were dangerous.

AARON MATÉ:  And one of the points you make in your article, which I didn’t know, is that part of the reason why Ukraine had this need for militias, far-right militias and foreign mercenaries, is because of a high rate of defection inside its own military ranks, people not wanting to serve, and even defecting to the other side of the rebellion in the Donbas.

JACQUES BAUD:  Exactly.  In fact, I noticed that, as I told you, I was in NATO and was monitoring the influx of weapons in the Donbas, and what we noticed is that we couldn’t identify import of weapons or export of weapons from the Russian side to the Donbas.  But what we could see is that you had a lot of Ukrainian units who defected, in fact, and complete battalions.  And in 2014, most of the heavy artillery that the Donbas gained were from defectors.  The whole units defected with ammunition and people and all that.  The reason is that the Ukrainian army was based on a territorial…was manned and organized on a territorial way.  That means you had a lot of Russian-speak[ers] in the armed forces.  Once they were sent to fight in the Donbas, they didn’t even want to fight their own colleagues and Russian-speaking people, so they preferred to defect.

And in addition to that you had in 2014, I mean in 2014 to 2017, in that period the leadership of the Ukrainian army was extremely poor.  You had a lot of corruption.  I’m not sure that the military was prepared for such a kind of war, in fact, because the war that was fought at that time by the rebels was very similar to what you can see in the Middle East today, or in the last years.  That made very mobile units moving around very rapidly, much faster than the heavy units that the Ukrainian army had, and, as a result, if we see the pattern of the different battles that were fought in 2014, 2015, you could see that the Ukrainians could never lead.  They had never the initiative.  The initiative was always with the rebels.  And it was not guerrilla.  That’s important to say.  It was kind of extremely mobile warfare.  And in addition to that you had, I think, the army was not really prepared to fight in general.  So, you had a lot of suicides, you had a lot of alcohol problems, you had a lot of accidents, you had a lot of murders within the Ukrainian army.

And that led a lot of young Ukrainians to leave the country, because they didn’t want to join the army.  And what I’m saying is, I mean, it was recorded and reported by official reports in the UK and the US, I think.  They made some very interesting reports on the low rate of recruitment of individuals, because people didn’t want simply to join the army.  And that’s the reason why NATO was involved, and I was involved in such a program, trying to reshuffle the image of the army and find solutions to improve the recruitment condition of the army, and things like that.

But the solutions that were provided by NATO were in fact institutional solutions that would take time, and in order to compensate with lack of personnel and probably to have more aggressive military personnel, they started to use internationalists and mercenaries, as a matter of fact.  Nobody knows exactly the number of these paramilitaries or extreme rights militias.  Reuters put the figure at one hundred thousand.  I’m not able to verify that, but that was a figure given by Reuters.  And that seems to fit what we can observe now in the different regions of the country.  So, these paramilitaries took a major role not in mobile warfare, and I would say [not in] the normal field warfare, but they were used in maintaining order within cities.  And that’s exactly what you have today in Mariupol, for instance, where you had those people, because they are not equipped for field operations.  They are equipped for urban warfare.  They have light equipment, they have some armored vehicles, but they don’t really have tanks, anything like this.

So, this is definitely units that are meant for urban warfare.  That’s what they do in major cities.  And these guys are extremely fanatic, we can say, and they are extremely dangerous.  And that explains the way Mariupol, the battles and the extremely brutal fights that you have in Mariupol as an example, and we probably will see the same thing in Kharkov, for instance.

AARON MATÉ:  As we wrap, I want to ask you about some of the recent atrocities that we’ve seen reported.  There were reports of mass civilian killings by Russia inside the town of Bucha and also killings of Ukrainian forces, and then you had the attack on the train station in Kramatorsk.  I’m wondering if you’ve evaluated both of these incidents and what you make of them.

JACQUES BAUD:  Well, there are two things in that.  And the first is that the indication we have on both incidents to me indicates that the Russians were not responsible for that.  But, in fact, we don’t know.  I think that’s what we have to say.  I mean, if we’re honest, we don’t know what happened.  The indications we have, everything, all the elements we have tends to point at Ukrainian responsibilities, but we don’t know.

What disturbs me in the whole thing is not so much that we don’t know, because in war there’s always such situations, there are always situations where you don’t know exactly who is really responsible.  What disturbs me is that Western leaders started to make decisions without knowing what’s going on and what happened.

And that’s something that disturbs me quite deeply, that before having any result of any kind of inquiry, of investigation, and I mean international, impartial investigation, without having that we start already to take sanctions, to make decisions, and I think that illustrates how the whole decision-making process in the West was perverted.  Since February or even before, in fact, because we had a similar thing after the hijacking—or not hijacking, by the way, it was not a hijacking—but the incident in Belarus with this Ryanair flight.  You may remember last May, last year, that people started to react just minutes after the incident was reported in the press, even they didn’t know what was going on!  So, that’s this way of doing from the political leadership in Europe, I mean the European Union, but also in European countries.  That disturbs me as an intelligence officer.  How can you make a decision with such impact on populations or on whole countries that disturbs even our own economies?  So, it tends to backfire on us.  But we take decisions without even knowing what’s going on, and that, I think, indicates an extremely immature leadership that we have in the West in general.  That’s certainly the case in the US, but I think in this example of the Ukraine crisis shows that the European leadership is not better than what you have in the US.  It’s probably even worse, I think, sometimes.  So, that’s what should worry us, that you have people deciding based on nothing, and that’s extremely dangerous.

AARON MATÉ:  Jacques Baud, he is a former strategic intelligence officer with the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service, also served in a number of senior security and advisory positions at NATO, the UN, and the Swiss military.  Jacques, thank you very much for your time and insight.

JACQUES BAUD:  Thank you for everything.  Thank you.

*

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Aaron Maté is a journalist and producer. He hosts Pushback with Aaron Maté on The Grayzone. In 2019, Maté was awarded the Izzy Award (named after I.F. Stone) for outstanding achievement in independent media for his coverage of Russiagate in The Nation magazine. Previously, he was a host/producer for The Real News and Democracy Now!.

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***

Food shortages and skyrocketing food prices now appear inevitable. The global food price index hit its highest recorded level in March 2022, rising 12.6% in a single month. On average, food prices were one-third higher than in March 2021. In the U.S., food prices rose 9% in 2021, and are predicted to rise another 4.5% to 5% in the next 12 months

Inflation was already ramping up well before Russia went into Ukraine, thanks to the uncontrolled printing of fiat currencies that occurred in response to the COVID pandemic. Governments’ COVID responses have also wreaked havoc with global supply chains, causing disruptions that continue to this day

Ukraine has ceased exports of wheat, oats, millet, buckwheat and cattle, and Russia has banned exports of fertilizer.

Together, Russia and Belarus provide nearly 40% of the global exports of potash, a key fertilizer ingredient. Russia also exports 48% of the global ammonium nitrate, and combined with Ukraine, they export 28% of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium fertilizers. Experts are now predicting fertilizer prices may double as a result of Russia’s ban on fertilizer exports

The long-term answer lies in regenerative biodynamic farming, which does not use any chemical inputs

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In the featured video, “Breaking Points” cohosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti discuss one of the greatest threats currently facing the people of the world, namely food shortages and skyrocketing food prices.

According to a recent NPR report,¹ the global food price index hit its highest recorded level in March 2022, rising 12.6% in a single month.² On average, food prices were one-third higher than in March 2021. In the U.S., food prices rose 9% in 2021, and are predicted to rise another 4.5% to 5% in the next 12 months.³

But while the Ukraine conflict is cited as the primary cause, it’s not the sole reason. Price inflation was already ramping up well before Russia went into Ukraine, thanks to the uncontrolled printing of fiat currencies that occurred in response to the COVID pandemic. Governments’ COVID response have also wreaked havoc with global supply chains, causing disruptions that continue to this day.

The climate has also been uncooperative, causing poor harvests around the world. China, for example, has reported it expects the lowest harvest yields in history this year, thanks to serious flooding of its farmland in the fall of 2021.⁴

Compounding Crises Threaten Global Food Productivity

That said, the Russia-Ukraine conflict is certainly making a bad problem worse. Ukraine is known as “the bread basket” of Europe, responsible for producing and exporting 12% of all food calories traded on the international market. Russia is also a major exporter of food, and together with Ukraine, the two countries account for nearly 30% of global wheat exports, nearly 20% of the world’s corn and more than 80% of the sunflower oil.⁵

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s projections, wheat exports from Russia and Ukraine will be reduced by more than 7 million metric tons in 2022. At the same time, the Ukrainian government has decided to ban all export of wheat, oats, millet, buckwheat and cattle, to ensure food safety for its own people, while Russia has banned exports of fertilizer.⁶

As reported by Wired, the current food crisis in Ukraine is made up of several components, and the effects will have a worldwide rippling effect, thanks to our dependency on global trade:⁷

“Goods that have already been harvested — last autumn’s corn, for instance — can’t be transported out of the country; ports and shipping routes are closed down, and international trading companies have ceased operations for safety. (Plus, while those crops sit in bins, destruction of the country’s power grid takes out the temperature controls and ventilation that keep them from spoiling.)

This year’s wheat, which will be ready in July, can’t be harvested if there’s no fuel for combines and no labor to run them. Farmers are struggling over whether to plant for next season — if they can even obtain seeds and fertilizer, for which supplies look uncertain …

Analysts worry that the countries that buy the most wheat from Ukraine — predominantly in Africa and the Middle East — will have the hardest time paying as prices rise.”

Scott Irwin, an agricultural economist and professor in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois told Wired magazine:⁸

“This crisis is beyond the normal ability to shuffle supplies around. We’ve exploded that system, and the cost is going to be extreme economic pain.”

Serious Fertilizer Shortage Looms

Together, Russia and Belarus provide nearly 40% of the global exports of potash, a key fertilizer ingredient. Russia also exports 48% of the global ammonium nitrate, and combined with Ukraine, they export 28% of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium fertilizers.⁹

Experts are now predicting fertilizer prices may double as a result of Russia’s ban on fertilizer exports. For some farmers, that will be a death knell that causes them to go out of business. The rest will be forced to charge more for their commodities, resulting in skyrocketing food prices.

Biodynamic Solutions

Are there any solutions to this pressing dilemma? I would argue that there are, but it’ll require rapid response and adaptation from farmers everywhere. As explained in “Kiss the Ground,” a documentary about biodynamic farming, a beautiful harmony exists within nature, and we can benefit by tapping into that natural system with biodynamic practices rather than working against it.

As noted in the film, a preview of which is included above, “Biodynamic farming is simply farming in service of life.” While it requires a leap of faith to make the transition, the results speak for themselves. Biodiversity improves rapidly on farms that make the transition, and the quality of the food (and the quality of life of the farmer) is greatly augmented.

Biodynamic agriculture builds upon the foundation of organic farming. That means zero pesticides and synthetic fertilizers are used. But biodynamic then goes a step further. The goal is to make the land better than it was before. It doesn’t just stop the destruction of soil, but actually regenerates it.

The farm as a whole is basically viewed as one organism, where each part of the farm supports the rest. Livestock have their role, as do microorganisms and beneficial insects. Rather than working against you, they’re now working for you to improve the fertility of the soil and the quality of the food grown in it.

Biodynamic farming is really about being a part of nature and working with it rather than trying to conquer nature through unnatural and ultimately destructive means.

Biodynamic farming can also, over time, help stabilize the climate. Not only do biodynamic farmers not pollute the air, water or soil in the first place, but the plants also pull carbon from the air, depositing it back into the soil where it does the most good, and requires far less watering. Regenerative practices also prevent the loss of topsoil and increase rainfall.

For example, regenerative ranchers in Northern Mexico, in the Chihuahuan Desert, who have added 1 million acres of rotational grazing, report getting 15% to 20% more rainfall than their neighbors who haven’t regenerated their land.

Support Biodynamic Farming

Many of the food products we sell under the Mercola brand are produced by Demeter certified biodynamic farmers in eight countries. Demeter is the oldest ecological certification in the world. Most recently, we’ve initiated the first-ever standards for Demeter Certified Biodynamic supplements as well.¹⁰

We also fund the Billion Agave Project, initiated by Regeneration International on a regenerative farm in Mexico run by the Organic Consumers Association. It’s a fantastic solution that solves several problems at once.

This project is a game-changing ecosystem-regeneration and reforestation strategy that uses a combination of agave plants and mesquite (a nitrogen-fixing companion tree), to salvage and regenerate degraded semi-arid lands that aren’t suitable for other crops.

Forty percent of the world is arid or semi-arid and in danger of becoming desert where nothing will grow. But we can reverse this process using native plants and permaculture techniques such as this one.

By taking a limb from a healthy mesquite tree, adding some natural hormones and wrapping the branch with a bag filled with compost, you will, after three to four months, have a small tree ready for planting as new roots grow into the compost-filled bag. At that point, you can either plant it into a container or directly into the soil.

This process is known as “air layering.” A 1-year-old mesquite tree grown in this way will be as big as a 7-year-old mesquite tree grown from seed, significantly speeding up the reforestation effort. The roots of the mesquite tree can burrow hundreds of feet down in search of water, and they in turn provide nutrition for other plants, as they exchange liquid carbon from the tree for the nutrients from the soil.

In this way, the mesquite supports the growth of the agave without need for chemical fertilizers, and the agave can then be used to produce a fermented nutrition-rich biomass that supports grazing livestock that otherwise might not have enough to eat.

A Way to Support Grazing Cattle on Semi-Arid Lands

Agave is best known for producing tequila, but a local farmer in Mexico discovered he could use the massive leaves, which are typically discarded as junk, to produce a nutrient-rich livestock feed. Cows, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens and even sheepdogs enjoy it.

The feed is produced by finely chopping up the leaves, each of which can weigh 40 to 80 pounds, and then fermenting them in a closed container. To this fermented mash, you can then add mesquite pods at a ratio of 80% to 90% agave leaf and 10% to 20% mesquite pods. This mix is superior to alfalfa in terms of nutrition, but costs only a third or a quarter of the price.

A big part of the cost-savings is from the reduced water consumption. Alfalfa needs about 26 times more water than agave and mesquite. Most of the animals on the farm eat the natural vegetation and get the agave mash as a supplement.

However, by adding garbanzo beans — another low-water crop — you could produce a feed that the animals could live on exclusively. Considering some areas are now considering culling their livestock herds due to a shortage in cattle feed,¹¹ this could be a novel solution in some instances.

New Market Opportunities

Changing the farming subsidies to prioritize regenerative farming would go a long way to changing the status quo, but private investing is another route to success that is now coming to the fore.

There’s a new type of asset being developed on the stock exchange called Natural Asset Stocks, or Natural Asset Corporations. The government of Costa Rica, for example, is putting all government-owned forests and farmlands into a Natural Asset Corporation.

This is a type of stock different from anything we’ve seen so far. Basically, these stocks will allow fund managers, private investors and corporations to invest in natural assets. The part you end up owning is the ecosystem services of that land.

So, for example, you could own the environmental services resulting from the Billion Agave Project, which include carbon sequestration amounts and water savings. Over time, as the whole system matures and the soils are regenerated, your asset rises in value.

This new asset system will allow Wall Street to divert financial assets into ecosystem assets that benefit the planet in a multitude of ways, and still get a return on their money.

The Organic Consumers Association has also developed a system of verification to go along with this new asset system. Using modern technology, it will be able to accurately measure things like the number and size of plants and the health of the soil.

They’re also using a blockchain accounting system to verify the calculations and make it very difficult to cheat. So, anyone who invests in a natural asset will be able to verify, several years down the road, at a very low cost, whether the asset has improved or degenerated.

Regenerative Farming Could Save the World

A number of people have pushed regenerative farming for decades, warning that the current chemical-dependent monoculture is unsustainable in the long run, and subject to geopolitical disruptions. We’re seeing the reality of those warnings right now.

Had heed been taken sooner, we wouldn’t be in such a precarious position right now. But hindsight is 20/20, and I believe many farmers will now be forced to make the tough choice to make the conversion to biodynamic if they want to survive in the long term.

Their transition is not going to bring immediate help to the global population, as it takes a number of years to turn depleted soils into soils that can support food production without chemical inputs. But we have to start thinking in the longer term if any of us are to survive.

As a nonfarmer, you can support this effort by buying food from regenerative and biodynamic farmers. Regenerative International, incorporated in 2014, has built a global network of regenerative farmers and ranchers, with some 400 affiliates in 60 countries.

You can find a map of these regenerative farms on RegenerationInternational.org. Of course, you can also implement regenerative strategies in your own garden, even if it’s a small one. The future does look bleak at the moment, with food shortages and skyrocketing prices appearing inevitable, but doing nothing is not the answer. We must all start thinking ahead and make wiser choices.

The globalization of food production has led us to the brink of disaster. The answer is to return to locally grown foods. Similarly, our reliance on chemical-dependent monocultures has just been proven to be a weak link that needs to be replaced by regenerative methods that don’t need chemicals to thrive. We have the answers to the problem. We just need to implement them, as rapidly as possible.

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Notes

¹ NPR April 8, 2022

^2, 3, 9 National Interest April 11, 2022

⁴ Bloomberg March 22, 2022

^{5, 6, 7, 8} Wired March 11, 2022

¹⁰ Regeneration International June 25, 2021

¹¹ Reuters March 18, 2022

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***

The Russian Ministry of Defence offer of surrender terms to the personnel of the extreme nationalist neo-Nazi battalions and foreign mercenaries in the Azovstal iron and steel works to end hostilities by 1.00 pm Moscow time on Sunday would only have been a proforma gesture.

Moscow’s statement said, that radio interceptions at Azovstal — as many as 367 in the past twenty-four hours — showed that the militants were in a hopeless situation, practically without food and water, and were seeking permission to lay down arms and surrender but “the Kiev authorities categorically forbid them to do this.”

Yesterday, Denis Pushilin, Head of the Donetsk administration, openly called for “elimination” of the neo-Nazi militants holed up in Azovstal. 

Azovstal is a massive Soviet-era plant, a city within the city of Mariupol. There is an underground city beneath the plant built in the Soviet era which includes Cold-War realities — structures to withstand bombing, blockades, and even nuclear strike. The Russian estimation is that a maximum of 2500 people could be holding out in the underground city equipped with armoured vehicles and huge arsenal of weapons and ammunition. 

The Russian side is in some hurry to finish off the operation in Mariupol. The forces there are are urgently needed to be redeployed to the Donbass front. Kiev, on the other hand, is banking on delaying the Russian operation which gives it more time to reinforce its forces in Donbass. 

President Zelensky has once again switched tack to speak about the diplomatic track. His latest stance is that Ukraine is ready to discuss abandoning its bid to join NATO and the status of Crimea with Russia, but not until Moscow halts hostilities and withdraws its troops! 

The Ukrainian armed forces already lost 23,367 people while 1,464 people surrendered in Mariupol as of yesterday and another 2,500 are blocked at the city’s Azovstal plant. As for the Donbass, Russian forces enjoy superiority in numbers, logistics, firepower and terrain and a defeat on that front will leave Zelensky no choice but to seek a negotiated settlement on Russian terms. (See a relatively balanced prognosis by the American military analyst Colonel (Retd.) Daniel Davis, The Battle For Donbas Will Be A Tough Fight For Ukraine.) 

Indeed, Zelensky and his American mentors hope that the battle for Donbass is wide open. The point is, although much of the war in eastern Ukraine will be fought in areas of open ground, Russian forces also have to take several significant population centres to achieve their objectives in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, including Severodonetsk, Rubizhne, Lysychansk, Slovyansk, and Kramatorsk as well as several smaller towns. 

The Russian performance so far does not bode well for rapid success against built-up areas. Again, the weapons provided by the West have helped Ukrainian forces significantly to prevent Russia controlling the skies. The Ukrainian side is counting on these factors to stem the tide of the battle. Plus, of course, their morale is high.  

Be that as it may, this time around, there is no confusion in the Russian mind that a peace settlement is round the corner. The Russians are unlikely to allow themselves to be hoodwinked again, when they took Zelensky for his word, trooped into the talks at Istanbul where an agreement was initialled on the basis of which, in an extravagantly emotional gesture of goodwill, they withdrew troops from Kiev and other northern territories, but only to see their interlocutors in Kiev backtrack on the terms of the agreement. 

The strange Russian behaviour conveyed misperceptions that the Kremlin might be looking for the exit door. Evidently, that has emboldened the Western powers to embark upon a large-scale rearmament project for Ukraine, including transfer of heavy offensive systems, high-precision ammunition, modern air defence systems, American Stinger missiles, etc. for use in the upcoming new phase of military confrontation.

It is an open secret that military personnel of the NATO countries are deployed alongside the Ukrainian forces under the guise of “foreign volunteers.” The foreign fighters are led by US officers and the whole command of the Ukrainian armed forces is concentrated mainly in the hands of the Americans. 

Arguably, the sinking of the warship Moskva fits into this paradigm. Russian analysts estimate that the last week’s missile strike on the Russian flag ship Moskva was actually masterminded and coordinated by the Pentagon. According to the ADS-B Exchange flight tracking site, a US Navy plane with electronic gear was spotted near the village of Zhurilovka in eastern Romania in the vicinity of the stricken ship Moskva (which probably guided the missile attacks.) Read here and here.

The implied message is: ‘Bring ‘em on.’ In military terms, though, the sinking of the ageing warship, 43 years old, may not be a game changer for the Russian operation. Everything now hinges on the offensive in Donbass — and, potentially further Russian operation in Kherson and Odessa without which the NATO will continue to pose acute threat to Russia in the Black Sea region. The NATO is already slouching toward Moldova.

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Featured image: Russian forces take control of strategic city pf Mariupol (Source: IP)

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***

Although the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and other elements of the Ukrainian military are only holding onto a few key areas of Mariupol, Kiev stubbornly does not recognize their inevitable defeat in the port city. Kiev carefully hides its own losses and forces its troops to continue resisting and suffer unjustified losses despite not even having enough ammunition or infantry to continue the battle.

As far back as April 11, writing on Facebook, the Ukrainian 36th Brigade admitted that all infantry soldiers had been killed and that “shootings battles” against Russian forces were now being conducted by artillerymen, anti-aircraft gunners, radio operators, drivers and even the cooks and musicians from the orchestra.

Over a week later and the number of Ukrainian servicemen who remain in Mariupol is not exactly known. According to Russian intelligence, no more than 700 Ukrainian fighters remain inside the last pockets of resistance, including about 200 foreign mercenaries. They hide in the underground facilities of the Azovstal plant with little to no ammunition, medicine and provisions.

Despite having obviously lost contact with its own forces and not wanting to admit the impossibility of their evacuation or sending military reinforcements to help them, Kiev declared the continuation of resistance to the bitter end. In effect, Ukrainian authorities have doomed their soldiers and foreign fighters to a senseless death unless they as individuals make the decision to surrender.

On April 11, during a failed breakthrough, three tanks, five infantry fighting vehicles and seven armored vehicles of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were destroyed. As of April 14, 2,673 people surrendered to the Russian military in the Greek-founded port city, the largest number of people who surrendered since Russian military operation in Donbass began in February.

Although Kiev’s forces have openly announced they will commit war crimes by killing Prisoners of War (PoW) and wounded Russian soldiers, with a video appearing online on March 28 of Ukrainian soldiers doing exactly that, other videos show Russian soldiers feeding captured Ukrainian troops, something that would certainly not appear in the mainstream Western media.

With Western media not reporting as such, this information is still distributed through Ukrainian social media and has resulted in thousands surrendering. Even Western media are struggling to find evidence and testimonies of Ukrainian soldiers being tortured, beaten or humiliated. This is strikingly different from the massacres perpetrated against Russian and Donbass forces.

Ukrainian prisoners are allowed to call their relatives and notify them that they are still alive. In fact, unlike their Russian counterparts, captured Ukrainian PoW’s that are cleared of war crimes are already participating in the clearing of rubble and destruction to clean up cities affected by the war.

An uncomfortable fact for Western mainstream media is that all the so-called “national battalions”, i.e. the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, Tornado and Aidar, are official units of the National Guard of Ukraine, which falls under the command of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. However, during wartime, which means since 2014, the National Guard obeys the orders of the Ukrainian commander-in-chief and the Ministry of Defense, meaning that both the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the National Guard are professional military outfits.

At the same time, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have much greater capabilities, firepower and technical means than the National Guard, and therefore the damage from the actions of the Army in Donbass is much greater. Ukrainian artillerymen have been targeting and killing civilians in Donbass for years,.. This has been extensively reported on by human rights organizations and the United Nations but sidelined and ignored by Western media.

Measures like releasing Ukrainian prisoners to their families after writing a receipt/contract stating that they refuse to participate in further hostilities and pledge not to fight again, so long as they had not previously committed war crimes, may look naïve but it is with the hope of minimizing casualties on both sides and deradicalizing the Far-Right Kiev regime.

Despite the reality that Mariupol has effectively fallen, Kiev is still unwilling to announce a surrender of its forces in the city, effectively dooming hundreds of Ukrainians and foreign fighters to their death. It is not known why Kiev insists on fighting to the last man in Mariupol, but after eight years since Donbass forces failed to capture the city, the domination of the Azov Battalion has effectively come to an end.

Although ignored by Western media, witness testimonies show that the Mariupol-based Azov Battalion enforced Ukrainization on the city’s inhabitants, so-much-so that those speaking Russian were fined, and in the most extreme cases executed, as happened to an ethnic Greek only 10 days before the Russian military operation began on February 24.

With Kiev unwilling to backtrack on its racist extremism and insistence on indiscriminately targeting Donbass civilians, emboldened by the idea that it would have the complete backing of the West, Ukraine has now completely lost access to the Azov Sea with the Russian capture of Mariupol.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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***

 

While the Pentagon and the United States State Department continues to provide a distorted rationale for the instigation of a major military conflict in Eastern Europe, billions of dollars are being utilized to transfer offensive weapons aimed at preventing a peaceful resolution to the current war in Ukraine.

Although the corporate and government-controlled media outlets in Western Europe and North America have reported to the public on a daily basis that their own administrations cannot be blamed for the current war in Ukraine, for any serious observer, the culpability for the tensions now existence on an international level can be traced back to the desire by imperialism to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

NATO was formed in 1949 in the aftermath of the Second World War and the initiation of the Cold War by Washington against the rising socialist and national liberation movements around the world. In 1949, only two countries on the African continent were independent, Ethiopia and Liberia. Both of these countries in 1949 were highly compromised due to the intervention of the United States and Britain in their internal affairs stemming from the legacy of African enslavement and the rise of imperialist fascism during the 1920s and 1930s. The founding members of NATO were all in North America and Western Europe being Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.

Many of these states were involved in the Atlantic Slave Trade and colonialism. All of them benefited from the super-exploitation of African and other oppressed peoples after the transformation of the world economic system beginning in the 15th century. The outcomes of the World War I and World War II left the U.S. as the dominant imperialist power in the world.

The only real and effective challenge to the hegemony of the U.S. and its allies during the post WWII period were the socialist states of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the People’s Republic of China (PRC) founded in 1949 after more than two decades of armed struggle, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) consolidated in 1948, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the north which declared independence in August 1945, along with the other anti-capitalist, anti-colonial and anti-neo-colonial movements arising in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America, which were objectively bolstered by the burgeoning African American and workers’ struggles which developed during the late 1940s and 1950s.

The position of the U.S. during the 1950s and 1960s represented the height of political hypocrisy. African Americans were being denied fundamental civil rights protections which were originally put in place during the period after the Civil War (1861-1865). There were Civil Acts and amendments to the U.S. Constitution between 1866-1875 ostensibly designed to reconstruct some semblance of democratic governance. Nonetheless, the Reconstruction process was overthrown during the latter decades of the 19th century placing African Americans in the social position of neo-slavery at worst and second-class citizenship at best.

Participants in the leading civil rights organizations after WWII were pressured to denounce the socialist camp and pledge allegiance to U.S. imperialism as the only legitimate system of governance not only domestically but internationally. Those leading activists and public figures who refused to adopt the Cold War policies of Washington were subjected to investigations, prosecution, imprisonment, economic isolation and exile. All the while African Americans were being lynched by mobs, killed without justification by police, executed by the state and denied fundamental due process and equal protection under the law.

Military Interventions to Halt National Liberation

Two examples of repression and mass killings by countries in the aftermath of WWII were carried out in French-controlled Algeria and the British-dominated Gold Coast (later known as Ghana after independence in 1957). These acts by the colonial powers were designed to preserve imperialist rule in Africa. Both Britain and France were founding members of NATO.

In Algeria on the same day as Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allied forces, French troops massacred thousands of people across the North African state for merely demonstrating against the racist and repressive policies of Paris. France had colonized Algeria since 1830 and would not relinquish control until the people waged an eight-year armed and diplomatic struggle aimed at national liberation.

Even France24 in a report published during 2021 said of the historical event: “On May 8, 1945, thousands had rallied in Setif as allied powers, including colonial ruler France, marked a hard-won victory in Europe over Nazi Germany. ‘Long live the allied victory,’ demonstrators shouted.

But the festive gathering soon turned into a demonstration for an end to colonial rule, with cries of ‘Long live independent Algeria!’ That was a provocation for French police, incensed by the appearance, for the first time, of Algerian flags. As they ordered the removal of the green and white standards, scuffles broke out. Demonstrator Bouzid Saal, 22, refused to drop his flag — so a French policeman shot him dead. Outrage tore through the massive crowd. The ensuing riots and revenge attacks on Europeans sparked a wave of repression by French authorities that left as many as 45,000 dead, according to Algerian official figures. French historians put the toll at up to 20,000, including 86 European civilians and 16 soldiers. The killings would have a transformative impact on the nascent anti-colonial movement. A full-blown independence war broke out nine years later, finally leading to the country’s independence in 1962…. The French launched a 15-day campaign of violence, targeting Setif and the surrounding rural region, bombing villages and hamlets indiscriminately. General Raymond Duval led French authorities’ ruthless clampdown, imposing martial law and a curfew on a patch of territory stretching from Setif to the sea, 50 kilometers (30 miles) north. Nationalist leaders were detained on pure suspicion, and villages suspected of harboring separatists were strafed by the air force and set ablaze. Women, children and the elderly were massacred, and some 44 villages were destroyed in 15 days of retribution. Executions continued until November 1945, and some 4,000 people were arrested.” (See this)

Of course, the official propaganda of the U.S. is that the purpose of their intervention in WWII was to fight against fascism and spread democracy in Europe. Yet the Allies utilized repression in an attempt to prevent the majority of people around the globe suffering under the yoke of western domination from achieving freedom and national independence.

In recent months the Algerian government has been involved in a diplomatic row with France as well as Spain over the legacy of colonialism and the status of the Western Sahara, which remains under the control of the Kingdom of Morocco with the support of the imperialist centers of authority in Europe and North America. French President Emmanuel Macron made statements suggesting that Algeria as a country did not exist prior to 1830 and the history of the anti-colonial movement, as told by Algiers, were a fabrication. These provocative comments by Macron and the role of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez who endorsed the continued colonization of the Western Sahara under Moroccan tutelage, represents the contemporary attitude of NATO member-states.

The second example related to the founding NATO member-states’ historic repression against anti-colonial movements occurred in the Gold Coast on February 28, 1948. African veterans of the war combined with traditional leaders boycotting the inflated prices of British-controlled goods, held peaceful protests to request adequate pensions and benefits for their military service for London as well as reasonable costs for commodities. British security forces opened fire on the demonstrators marching to Christiansborg Castle (Osu) to present their petition to colonial authorities when three leaders of the protest were assassinated. Later as the African masses rose up in rebellion against the massacre, the British arrested scores of people deemed as the organizers of the unrest. This series of events in 1948 led to the independence struggle headed by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah who founded the Convention People’s Party in June 1949, just over one year later, creating the conditions for another eight-year campaign to achieve freedom from Britain on March 6, 1957.

Nkrumah had been brought back to the Gold Coast in late 1947 to work as an organizer for the then United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), an anti-colonial grouping. In the aftermath of the event of February 1948, sharp differences would surface between Nkrumah and other leading UGCC officials.

A source on the events of 1948 in the Gold Coast notes:

“The people’s protests lasted five days. By 1st March the colonial governor had declared a state of emergency and put in place a new Riot Act. On 12th March the governor ordered the arrest of ‘The Big Six,’ leading members of the UGCC, which included Kwame Nkrumah, as he believed they were responsible for orchestrating the disturbances. The Big Six were incarcerated in remote northern parts of the country. It was around this time that Nkrumah and the other five began to have significant disagreements over the direction of the movement for independence. By 1949 Nkrumah had broken away from the UGCC to form the Convention People’s Party (CPP) taking the masses of the people with him. The CPP, through a campaign of ‘Positive Action,’ achieved an end to the Gold Coast colony and brought the new dawn of independent Ghana on 6th March 1957.” (See this)

The independence movements in Africa utilized various forms of organizational tactics aimed at achieving victory over colonialism. In the former Portuguese colonies of Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Angola, Africans had no other choice than to resort to arms in their fight against Lisbon. Portugal received maximum logistical and diplomatic support from NATO in their war against the national liberation movements of the PAIGC, MPLA and FRELIMO in Guinea-Bissau, Angola and Mozambique respectively.

Azores island in the Atlantic served as a NATO base of operations against the guerrilla movements in Africa. Under the U.S. administration of President Richard Nixon from 1969-1974, the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger even wrote memorandums encouraging the Pentagon and NATO unconditional support for fascist-colonial Portugal. These memoranda were also designed to undermine the morale of the liberation movements and solidarity efforts in the West seeking to end colonial rule of tens of millions of African people.

After the failure of the war by Lisbon to defeat the liberation movements, a military coup occurred in Portugal in April 1974. Although the question of NATO membership did not initially arise, a debate would erupt over the future role of the country within the military alliance. Portugal relinquished control over its African colonies, however, the European country remained within the western sphere of influence including membership in NATO.

NATO and Imperialism in the 21st Century

Over the last two decades, NATO has enhanced its profile through participation in numerous U.S.-coordinated military operations in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya. These interventions have left untold numbers of civilians and government personnel dead, injured and displaced.

After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Yugoslavia erupted in micro-nationalist warfare which lasted until the conclusion of the decade. The 1999 bombing of Serbia, including the capital of Belgrade, was designed to solidify the dominance of the Pentagon-NATO alliance in Europe and consequently throughout broader geo-political regions of the world. Serbia was subjected to massive airstrikes for over two months. The following year, even after the government in Belgrade had been functionally neutralized, then President Slobodan Milosevic was overthrown, kidnapped and brought to the Netherlands to stand trial in a U.S.-engineered special tribunal on war crimes. Milosevic later died in detention while in subsequent years, several of the newly-independent states in the area were recruited into NATO.

Source: Global Times

Afghanistan in 2001 was bombed, invaded and occupied by the U.S. which mobilized other NATO states to engage in the 20-year war ostensibly aimed at ending jihadist terrorism in Central Asia. After eight months in office President Joe Biden ordered the withdrawal of Pentagon forces from Afghanistan. Other NATO states had already exited the country. The character of the pullout from Afghanistan resulted in the deaths of 13 Marines stationed outside the airport at Kabul during the evacuation.

In retaliation, the U.S. launched a drone strike on innocent people in Kabul killing members of a family which had cooperated with the NATO occupation. At present, there is a widespread humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan leaving millions displaced, impoverished and hungry. To add even more distress to the Afghan people, Biden expropriated $3.5 billion in assets being held in U.S. banks. Consequently, the White House has turned its back on the victims of a disastrous NATO intervention and occupation leaving tens of millions without employment, food, medicines and the capacity to generate income and international trade. (See this)

This humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan by the Pentagon and NATO has served to further damage the popular standing of the Biden presidency. Nonetheless, there has been no reduction in the Pentagon budget which strangles the working and oppressed masses in the U.S. At present the war in Ukraine has taken center stage in regard foreign and domestic policy. Countries around the world are being pressured into rallying alongside imperialism in its war drive to expand the NATO project through the destabilization of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China in the Far East.

In the North African state of Libya during the early months of 2011, the U.S. backed counter-revolutionary rebel elements sought to overthrow the Jamahiriya government led by Col. Muammar Gaddafi. The United Nations Security Council at the time voted to pass two resolutions which authorized a total arms and economic blockade against Libya as well as the establishment of a so-called no-fly zone which is merely another form of war declaration. A similar no-fly zone had been imposed over Iraq during the 1990s accompanied by draconian sanctions which killed an estimated one million people, many of whom were women, children and seniors. (See this)

After the ground operations in Libya, which began on February 17 were not reaping the desired results by imperialism, a massive blanket bombing of the oil-rich country by the Pentagon and NATO was launched on March 19 which lasted for seven months. There were reports that anywhere between 50,000 to 100,000 people were killed and two million displaced. The longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi was targeted and assassinated as he was attempting to exit the areas around Sirte.

The impact of the destruction of Libya as in the cases of Yugoslavia and Afghanistan had regional and international implications. Instability due to the dislocation of millions during and after the air campaign fueled further destabilization in neighboring Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad.

Libya since 2011 has become a notorious center for human trafficking and internecine conflict that has spilled over into other states prompting migration across the Mediterranean into Southern Europe. The human traffickers engage in dangerous methods of transportation across North Africa and the Mediterranean Sea. Thousands die every year seeking to escape the detention centers and continuing sectarian battles in Libya.

The migration of Africans and Asians to Southern Europe has provided a political rationale for the growth of ultra-right groupings and governments committed to ending entry into their countries by people of color. European Union (EU) coast guard units routinely intercept migrants at sea to repatriate them back to Africa. In Europe, migrants are often confined to detention centers where they are harassed by the authorities.

Moreover, on a political electoral level, the migration question has become a major wedge issue in Europe and the U.S. Successive administrations in Washington led by Democrats and Republicans have failed to develop a comprehensive immigration policy. At least part of this inability to adequately address the issue lies in the refusal to abandon the imperialist foreign policy of Washington and Wall Street.

Imperialist wars of occupation since 2001 involving Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Syria, Yemen, Libya, among other states, are at the root of the dislocation of tens of millions. This is the largest number of refugees and internally displaced persons since the conclusion of WWII.

The UN Refugee Agency reports on its website that:

“At least 82.4 million people around the world have been forced to flee their homes. Among them are nearly 26.4 million refugees, around half of whom are under the age of 18. There are also millions of stateless people, who have been denied a nationality and lack access to basic rights such as education, health care, employment and freedom of movement. At a time when 1 in every 95 people on earth has fled their home as a result of conflict or persecution, our work at UNHCR is more important than ever before.”

These figures are rarely reported on in the U.S. media, and when they are, it is not done in a manner which links the unprecedented levels of displacement with imperialist wars waged by the Pentagon, NATO and its allies around the globe. Absent a social and historical context in which to explain the origins of the crisis, people are encouraged to believe that the refugee, IDP and migrant situations are somehow a result of the purported moral deficiencies of people in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Yet the African, Latin American and Asian geo-political regions are still being targeted by NATO for containment, exploitation and conquest.

By absolving itself of culpability, the U.S. can attempt to justify its denial of entry to migrants and refugees and their discriminatory treatment while awaiting a decision on whether they can legally live in the country. Within the immigration laws and policies of the U.S., racism is often utilized to limit the number of peoples of African, Asian and Latin American descent into the U.S.

In the Horn of Africa state of Somalia there has been instability for the last three decades due to the political and military interference of the U.S. and NATO. More recently in 2006-2007, the administration of President George W. Bush encouraged troops from Ethiopia under the TPLF-EPRDF leadership of Meles Zenawi to invade Somalia in order to prevent the consolidation of power by the Islamic Courts Union.

Airstrikes by the Pentagon and the British Royal Air Force were initiated on a regular base in Somalia under the guise of preventing terrorism. Numerous attempts to form a unified civilian transitional government have not been able to include the Al-Shabaab underground armed guerrillas. Al-Shabaab has since its emergence as the major opponents to the western-backed federal government, has split into at least two identifiable factions.

For the last fifteen years, the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM), which included troops from several regional states including Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Uganda, has failed to military defeat al-Shabaab. Once again in recent weeks, the mandate of AMISOM was extended for another year with no real prospect of a final resolution to the conflict in Somalia.

Much of the military training and weaponry are supplied by the U.S. and its NATO allies for AMISOM. The putative peacekeeping operations also maintains UN Security Council diplomatic backing and funding. U.S. soldiers and other personnel working with intelligence agencies have been killed in action in Somalia. Suicide bombings and other armed attacks take place in several areas of the country including the capital of Mogadishu.

Relationships developed between AU member states with the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and NATO are not just on a bilateral basis. NATO itself has outlined an extensive program of engagement, training and collaboration with the AU Secretariat in Addis Ababa. The same reasons cited by AFRICOM for its deployments of thousands of troops on the continent mirrors the language of NATO. Both institutions claim that they are invited to participate in joint training exercises with African military forces from various regions.

In addition, a significant number of African officers are trained in Pentagon war colleges in the U.S. Unfortunately, and not surprisingly, some of these ranking soldiers have been involved in military coups against elected governments. This has been the case in Mali, Guinea and Libya where internal conflict and lack of democratization is objectively underwritten by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

AU-affiliated regional organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have been unable to reverse a series of military coups taking place in Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Chad. ECOWAS along with France and the U.S. have issued statements opposing the military usurpation of power yet these coup regimes remain in office with absolute impunity.

Therefore, the training supplied by the Pentagon and NATO cannot ensure stability and security on the African continent. In order for AU member-states to achieve genuine independence and sovereignty it must come from the internal dynamics within the political structures established by the democratic forces operating inside these countries. The western bourgeois democracies represented by NATO have never extended the notions of self-determination and independent foreign policies to the underdeveloped nations and regions of the world.

In language provided by NATO in regard to its cooperation with AU member-states, the military alliance says:

“Since 2005, NATO has been cooperating with the African Union (AU) – a regional organization with 55 members created in 2002. The NATO-AU relationship started modestly with AU requests for logistics and airlift support for its mission in Sudan. The cooperation has evolved over time and, although primarily based on ad-hoc military-technical cooperation, NATO Allies are committed to expanding cooperation with the AU to make it an integral part of NATO’s efforts to work more closely with partners in tackling security challenges emanating from the south.” (See this)

However, over the last 17 years the degree of instability in Africa has heightened substantially particularly since the Pentagon-NATO engineered counter-revolution in Libya during 2011. Conditions have deteriorated in some countries such as the Central African Republic and Mali that the governments of these states, even the military juntas, are turning towards Moscow for security assistance and training. (See this)

France and the U.S. have taken great exception to the presence of Russian-based military advisors in the CAR and Mali. The Wagner group, a defense services corporation which operates as a private enterprise, has been present in Mali in recent months prompting threats by Paris to withdraw its military assistance to Bamako. In response, the military junta in Mali ordered the French ambassador to leave the West African state within 72 hours. (See this)

In the same above-quoted NATO document on AU cooperation, it goes on to emphasize:

“In January 2007, the AU made a general request to all partners, including NATO, for financial and logistical support to AMISOM. It later made a specific request to NATO in May 2007, requesting strategic airlift support for AU member states willing to deploy in Somalia under AMISOM. In June 2007, the North Atlantic Council (NAC) agreed, in principle, to support this request and NATO’s support was initially authorized until August 2007. Strategic sealift support was requested at a later stage and agreed in principle by the NAC in September 2009. The AU’s strategic airlift and sealift support requests for AMISOM have been renewed on an annual basis. The current NAC agreement to support the AU with strategic air- and sealift for AMISOM extends until January 2022…. NATO has a liaison office at the headquarters of the AU. The liaison office is comprised of a Senior Military Liaison Officer, a Deputy and one support staff. The liaison office provides, at the AU’s request, subject matter experts, who work in the AU’s Political Affairs, Peace and Security Department alongside African counterparts. The NATO Senior Military Liaison Officer is the primary coordinator for the Alliance’s activities with the AU. The size of NATO’s presence on the ground in Addis Ababa is based upon the requests from the AU and the availability of resources from Allies.”

How can the AU member-states secure and protect the interests of the 1.3 billion people on the continent with these levels of penetration by NATO within its military structures? These contradictions must be corrected in order to build viable internal defense mechanisms, combined with strategies and tactics which are compatible with the needs of the workers, youth and farmers in Africa. Neo-colonialism is manifested in the economic and subsequent military policies of contemporary African states. The source of what is described as “Islamic terrorism” has its origins in the counterinsurgency efforts by Washington to undermine those governments seeking to build genuine independence, unity and socialism. The jihadist groupings founded and funded by Washington and its allies serve the interests of the Pentagon and NATO by providing a rationale for sanctions, bombings, invasions and the installation of puppet regimes beholden to the interests of imperialism.

Global Impact of NATO Expansion in Eastern Europe: Food Deficits and Energy Crises

One of the most alarming aspects of the war in Ukraine and the ongoing sanctions against the Russian Federation are the sharp rise in prices for consumer goods and energy. Fuel prices in the state of California in the U.S. have gone up to as high as $6 per gallon. In other regions of the country, prices are coming down slightly, perhaps due to the release by the Biden administration of millions of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), a tactic which has been used by other presidents in the past.

The U.S. has witnessed the highest inflation rate in over 40 years. The 7-8% rate noted by the federal government does not tell the complete story. Costs related to living expenses such as rents, taxes, car prices, food and other commodities have increased substantially. Since there has not been a raise in the minimum wage means that working people are losing income every single quarter of the year.

On an international scale, food supplies to various geo-political regions have been seriously curtailed because Russia and Ukraine are considered two of the largest agricultural producers in the world. In various African and Middle Eastern states, the potential for enormous food deficits is more than apparent. These countries are attempting to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic since early 2020 which caused serious disruptions in industrial and agricultural production. Lockdowns and the rapid spread of the coronavirus has caused millions of deaths and many more severe illnesses which often have long term public health, economic and social consequences.

One report on the escalating crisis in food supplies published by the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington pointed out that:

“Russia and Ukraine are considered the breadbaskets of the world. In 2021, the two countries exported more than one-quarter of the world’s wheat. They are both major suppliers of corn, sunflower seed oil, and barley; Russia is also a major supplier of fertilizer, which is critical for agricultural production. Food prices are soaring, exacerbating inflation rates and reducing the purchasing power of populations across the Middle East and Africa, where 70% of Russian wheat exports went in 2021. These escalating costs, fed by actual and anticipated scarcity, are exacerbating economic crises for Egypt and Lebanon, with a heavy reliance on Russian and Ukrainian wheat imports, and imperiling vulnerable populations in conflict zones, including Yemen, Syria, and Somalia, which heavily rely on emergency food aid.”

NATO war impacts African states (Source: Statista)

In the energy sector the banning of Russian oil and natural gas in Western Europe are inevitably causing disruptions in supply. Opportunistically the U.S. has proposed a plan to redirect its energy supplies to NATO countries in Eastern and Western Europe. However, this process. which is highly unfeasible, will take time to develop the necessary supplies of oil and natural gas to those states which have adopted Washington’s foreign policy.

Sanctions above all else are acts of war. The attempted strangulation of countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Russia and China, etc. are designed to destabilize these states and to make them susceptible to regime change in favor of the U.S. and other NATO governments. Russia, China and a host of other states have vowed to resist these efforts to isolate them from world trade and international relations.

The New York-based think tank, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), acknowledged the strategic role of Russia in providing energy resources to European states. An article on the CFR website reveals:

“Overall, Russia supplies about one-third of European natural gas consumption, used for winter heating as well as electricity generation and industrial production. The European Union (EU) also turns to Russia for more than one-quarter of its crude oil imports, the bloc’s largest single energy source. Some EU states are far more dependent than others. Portugal and Spain use little Russian energy, while Germany, the largest European economy, gets more than half of its natural gas and more than 30 percent of its crude oil supplies from Russia. France gets most of its electricity from nuclear power but still relies on Russian imports to meet its fossil fuel needs. Analysts say plans in Germany and other countries to phase out nuclear and coal power could increase this dependence.”

These factors portend much for the economic and consequent political future of the capitalist and imperialist governments in Europe. The disruptions in food and energy supplies perpetuated by the foreign policy imperatives of Washington and Wall Street will have ramifications far beyond the theater of war in Ukraine and Russia.

The Need for a New Security System in Europe

Undoubtedly, the Biden administration is failing again in its efforts to enhance the electoral prospects for the upcoming midterm elections. Can the war propaganda against Russia and China be enough to ensure the maintenance of a majority for the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives and the Senate which will be seated in January 2023?

EU countries would be in a much better position if they rebuffed the pressures exerted by the White House and State Department by initiating its own diplomatic overtures towards Russia and China aimed at developing a more reasonable approach to regional security on that continent. European historians should be fully aware of the dangers of another imperialist war.

The uncertainty generated by the war in Ukraine on an international scale could very well result in a similar and perhaps more costly defeat for U.S. foreign policy. This coupled with the lack of a social spending strategy absent legislative action by Congress could doom the second half of the Biden administration to a paralyzing gridlock positioning the Republican Right for a resurgence of dominance along with the potential for a second Trump presidency.

Working and oppressed people in the U.S. are compelled to unite on an independent basis to end the war drive of the ruling class and its surrogates in the political superstructure. The actual impediments to the realization of a just and equitable society in the U.S. are not to be found in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran. These U.S.-based class enemies of the majority domestically and globally have a vested interest in maintaining the Pentagon-NATO budget to facilitate the continuing exploitation of the peoples of the world.

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Author’s Note:

This paper was prepared and delivered in part to a webinar entitled: “The Case Against NATO” which featured presentations from various scholars and activists around the world. The speakers, in addition to Abayomi Azikiwe, were Carlos Run, the Venezuelan Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for North America and the President of the Simon Bolivar Institute for Peace and Solidarity Among Peoples; Kate Hudson, the General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; Jenny Clegg, former lecturer in International Studies and long-time China specialist; Chris Matlhako, the 2nd Deputy General Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the General Secretary of the Friends of Cuba Society and member of the South African Peace Initiative; Prof. Qingsi of the Renmin University in China; and moderator Prof. Radhika Desai of the Department of Political Studies and the Geopolitical Economy Research Group at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. The entire webinar can be viewed at this website.

Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.” —Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (paperback, hardcover, Kindle, audiobook)

I am writing to urge No votes on AB2098, SB1390, AB1797, SB1464, SB871, SB866, and SB1479, and part of a decalogue of medical tyranny bills (down to seven now that SB1184 passed on April 5 while AB 1993 and the HIPAA-violating SB 920 were pulled).

AB2098 threatens to strip physicians and surgeons of their licenses for “unprofessional conduct,” which it defines as:

“disseminat[ing] or promot[ing] misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19, including false or misleading information regarding the nature and risks of the virus, its prevention and treatment; and the development, safety, and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.”

Similarly, SB1390 criminalizes the “amplification of harmful content” on social media platforms.

Who is to decide what is “misinformation,” “disinformation,” “false,” “misleading,” or “harmful”? To claim the State has the right to override medically trained physicians is to subject medical science to political science, consequently putting not only individual patients but all of humanity at grave risk.

You would be fulfilling Carl Sagan’s darkest fears, which have already become manifest over the past two years of politically-formulated COVID absolutism:

“We’ve arranged the society based on science and technology in which nobody understands anything about science and technology, and this combustible mixture of ignorance and power sooner or later is gonna blow up in our faces.…

“Science is more than a body of knowledge. It’s a way of thinking, a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan—political or religious—who comes ambling along.”

Passing AB2098 and SB1390 would establish a totalitarian Ministry of Truth, and none but the bravest would dare speak against the authoritarian edicts of political forces, themselves lavishly funded by corporations whose bottom line takes precedent over human rights and patients’ health.

Orwell describes this totalistic hubris as follows:

“At all times the Party is in possession of absolute truth, and clearly the absolute can never have been different from what it is now.”

Over the past two years, every single COVID policy championed by tyrants, “experts,” colluders, and Covidians yielded grotesque profits for megacorporations; dictatorial powers for governments; and enormous losses of life, health, and rights for individuals.

The more research and data that has accumulated, the more evident it has become that the physicians who courageously challenged the propaganda machine were correct, while the policymakers were deadly wrong.

Let’s look at a few examples:

1. Masks: FAIL
2. Lockdowns: FAIL
3. Experimental injectable products (“vaccines”): FAIL
4. Anti–early treatment protocols: FAIL
5. Anti–natural immunity: FAIL
6. Discrimination against the unvaccinated: FAIL
7. Censoring information that contradicts the narrative: FAIL
8. Abrogating human rights in the name of the public good: FAIL
9. Incentivizing lethal CDC hospitalization protocols: FAIL
10. Turning the world into an open-air prison: FAIL

Indeed, the chiseled commandments issued from on high by the WHO, NIH, CDC, and FDA were so catastrophic, it’s like they were designed to fail.

Even Anthony “The Science” Fauci agreed with the traditional health recommendations these truth-telling doctors advocated before he contorted his decrees to fit political and profiteering aims:

If the doctors you want to strip of their licenses had formulated public health policies, there would have been little to no loss of life due to COVID or any of the additional interventions that have caused what has been described as the “worst-ever excess mortality … in history.”

Life insurance and health insurance companies have seen spiraling fatalities and injuries, including a 40-percent increase in mortality in the 18–64 group—a 12-sigma event—and an 84-percent increase in Millennial deaths (25–44) according to a former Blackrock portfolio manager. The funeral industry, on the other hand, is booming. Embalmers are also finding never-before-seen “white worm-like elastic clots in cadavers.”

When world-renowned pathologists conducted autopsies on several of the innumerable people who have died suddenly, 93 percent of those deaths were found to have been caused by the injectable product sold as our salvation.

The CDC’s adverse events reporting system supports this conclusion, having received 1,216,787 reports (including 26,693 deaths and 46,317 reports for kids) associated with these products through April 1, 2022.

The injuries millions of victims are experiencing are excruciatingly real, not rare. Athletes have been hit particularly hard, witnessing record-high numbers of deaths, injuries, and dropouts due to health issues such as myocarditis.

California’s excess mortality is especially shameful at 13.5 percent in 2020 with 38,799 excess deaths. The year the injectable products were introduced, 2021, saw an even greater increase in excess mortality at 18.7 percent or 52,278 deaths beyond the expected number.

Even though we’re only a few months into 2022, California’s excess mortality has already reached 19.9 percent—that’s 12,947 unexpected deaths in the first quarter alone.

Children are especially at risk; British children, for example, were found to be 54 timesmore likely to die if injected. For these and the reasons outlined in Letter to a Governing Body and Letter to a Tyrant, you must vote No on SB871, SB866, and SB1479, all of which put children’s lives and long-term health at risk.

And there are the Pfizer clinical trial documents gradually being released due to an FOIA request by attorney Aaron Siri’s team. Initially, the FDA (which, incidentally, received $2,875,842 from Pfizer for their application) wanted 55 years to release the data, and then they had the gall to ask for 75 years.

Fortunately, the judge rejected this request and ordered the FDA to release the documents at a rate of 55,000 pages per month. The pages that have been released to date reveal the FDA knew over a year ago that Pfizer/BioNTech’s product was associated with 1,223 deaths in the first 90 days, 158,000 adverse events, and 1,291 side effects, many of which are not only debilitating but life-threatening. They also show both Pfizer and the FDA were aware their experimental gene therapy product was associated with menstrual cycle disruption and miscarriages.

Here is a three-minute video of a nurse reacting to the nine pages’ worth of side effects released in the data dump. Long-time vaccine proponent and nurse educator Dr. John Campbell was appalled by the Pfizer documents and has subsequently realized he and others have been egregiously deceived. Dr. Chris Martenson also provides an accessible walk-through of the pages that had been released at the time of filming.

This Canadian COVID Care Alliance presentation uses Pfizer’s own data to prove their product is both unsafe and ineffective.

Additionally, life-saving early treatment protocols were libeled because their long-term safety records and demonstrable efficacy threatened pharmaceutical corporations’ ability to secure the emergency use authorizations (EUAs) that guaranteed them immunity from liability for any harm caused by their experimental products. Simultaneously, necrotic medications like remdesivir and noxious protocols like intubation/ventilation were financially incentivized, and deaths “with” (not “from”) COVID were tallied to inflate the COVID death count and buttress the fear-whipping propaganda being used to justify the worldwide push to authoritarianism.

COVID policies such as lockdowns resulted in small businesses being macerated by big-box and online stores. They also caused profound psychological harm and skyrocketing suicides, deaths of despair, and drug overdoses. More than 100 millionadditional people were plunged into famine and poverty—all while billionaires funneled trillions into their bank accounts during “the greatest transfer of wealth from the middle class to the elites in history.”

The average citizen doesn’t hear anything about these pernicious repercussions because the billion-dollar-bribed legacy media, Big Tech, and governments connived with BigPharma to conceal the sky-falling evidence about the lethality and inefficacyof these injections, aided by corrupt regulatory-captured agencies like the FDA, CDC, and NIH.

History has repeatedly shown that when policy is guided by political science instead of medical science, people die. Lots of people.

As Groucho Marx said:

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”

If you care about saving lives and protecting the health of California citizens, you must begin listening to the physicians who have been censored and silenced—not blacklisting them like AB2098 proposes.

AB1797’s proposal to develop an immunization tracking system would grant all government agencies access to citizens’ vaccination records. If you want a glimpse of the dystopian surveillance state this bill would contribute to the creation of, watch this video of a drone telling the Shanghai COVID prisoners:

“Residents of Jiuting. During the pandemic, we request that you strictly abide by COVID-19 restrictions and related guidelines. Control your soul’s desire for freedom. Do not open the window or sing. This increases the risk of COVID-19 transmission.”

As seen on Weibo: Shanghai residents go to their balconies to sing & protest lack of supplies. A drone appears: “Please comply w covid restrictions. Control your soul’s desire for freedom. Do not open the window or sing.” https://t.co/0ZTc8fznaV pic.twitter.com/pAnEGOlBIh

— Alice Su (@aliceysu) April 6, 2022

SB1464 threatens to withhold state funding from law enforcement agencies and reallocate those funds to the county public health department if the agency “publicly announces that they will oppose, or adopts a policy to oppose, a public health order.”

This is the most Gestapo proposal of all these fascistic bills and would coerce sheriffs and law officers to potentially violate their conscience in the name of what have already been demonstrated to be calamitous public health policies.

Martin Luther King Jr. had something to say about such unconscionable behavior:

“There are just laws and there are unjust laws. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

So why is it that Assembly Member Evan Low, Senator Richard Pan, Assembly Member Akilah Weber, Senator Scott Wiener, and Senator Dave Cortese have introduced such a treacherous set of bills?

Could it have something to do with being beholden to their pharmaceutical donors and corporate paymasters?

We know, for example, that the pharmaceutical industry has a record of committing fraud, knowingly keeping asbestos in its baby powder for decades, and peddling heart-stopping drugs like Vioxx, whose manufacturer even drew up a hit list for doctors who heroically attempted to expose the carnage wreaked by this drug:

“During a class-action case in Australia over Merck’s heart-attack and stroke-inducing drug, Vioxx, it was revealed that a ‘doctor hit list’ circulated within the ranks of the hierarchy. This list contained names the doctors who spoke out against the drug using labels such as ‘neutralize,’ ’neutralized,’ and ‘discredit.’ During the testimony, Julian Burnside, QC, acting for the plaintiff, read one email from a Merck employee that said, ‘We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live.’

“Also reported in the Australian were documents that surfaced in the Federal Court in the Melbourne hearing regarding the criminal intent of Merck staffers who admitted they intended to ‘stop funding to institutions’ and ‘interfere with academic appointments.’”

—Milanda Rout, “Vioxx Maker Merck and Co Drew Up Doctor Hit List,” April 1, 2009, The Australian, cited in Dissolving Illusions (paperback, Kindle, audiobook)

But these pharmaceutical corporations with an uninterrupted history of murderous coverups, fraud, bribery, corruption, extortion, and exploitation are all miraculously on the side of good instead of being profit-drunk psychopaths now, right … right? Yeah, right.

Perusing Open Secrets, we learn Assembly Member Low has garnered funding from pharmaceutical-industry–serving EcoLab, Inc., which has its own WEF pagedescribing it as “a trusted partner at nearly 3 million customer locations,” as well as KPMG LLP, which also has a WEF page and appeared at Davos 2019 and Davos 2020.

Amazon, FedEx, and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings have all donated to one or more of these politicians (e.g., Hastings to Low, Pan, and Wiener).

What do these multinational corporations have in common? Let’s just say they all profited magnificently from pandemic protocols—Netflix making record profits in 2020, FedEx nearly tripling its income, and Amazon tripling its profits in the first quarter of 2021 alone.

Weber collected nearly a million dollars in donations and PAC money, including:

“a $200,000 check from the California Medical Association, $100,000 each from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America IEC and the California Dental Association Independent Expenditure PAC …”

Those organizations also benefit from continuing and escalating the unsafe and ineffective COVID protocols and despotic measures these proposed bills seek to deliver.

Frédéric Bastiat writes:

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

If you are one of the rare uncorrupted politicians in possession of moral character, independent thought, compassion, wisdom, sanity, reason, respect for science, and a backbone, you will vote No on each of these venal, tyrannical bills.

Otherwise, be prepared to say goodbye to the few remaining Californians—including your most skilled, knowledgeable, and ethical physicians and surgeons—as they hightail it to a free state that respects their rights and protects their health like Florida.

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***

The United States’ and NATO’s so-called “lethal aid” to the post-Maidan regime in Kiev is in no way breaking news. It has been going on for nearly a decade now and has directly contributed to the mass murder of around 15,000 people in Donbass. In addition to weapons, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have received top-level training by the US, UK and other NATO militaries. In recent months, these arms deliveries have skyrocketed to unprecedented levels. In addition to thousands, even tens of thousands of antitank guided missiles (ATGMs) and man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), the “Javelin” and “Stinger” missiles being the most prominent examples, Ukraine also received thousands of drones and loitering munitions.

Apart from weapons, the North Atlantic Alliance has also mobilized its vast ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) capabilities and is relaying battlefield information to the Kiev regime. It remains to be seen how effective this is, given the collapse of Kiev’s joint military command and control structure, but it definitely shows the West’s commitment to their favorite regime. In other words, the US has been involved in every conceivable way, except for a direct shooting war with Russia. However, even that may change in the coming days and weeks.

The Kiev regime recently passed a law officially allowing foreign citizens to serve in its intelligence and higher echelons of military hierarchy. Of course, this doesn’t seem like news flash to most people, especially given that US intelligence has been heavily involved in Ukraine for decades. However, coupled with the recent Kiev’s request for the MQ-9 “Reaper” unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV), this may be much bigger news than what the mainstream media is reporting. These US MQ-9 “Reaper” drones are infamous for sowing death and destruction across the world, with former US President Obama authorizing at least 6,000 documented drone strikes around the world (the actual number may be orders of magnitude greater), which would make it approximately 2 drone strikes per day during Obama’s 8 years of presidency.

And this is when we get to the connection between Kiev’s new law and the drones. The transfer of the MQ-9 “Reaper” is useless without the necessary training for the drone operators. This alone takes over two months, which is the time the Kiev regime simply doesn’t have. In order to make any possible difference, these drones would need to be used as soon as humanly possible. So, which other options does this leave for the regime? Well, it’s rather simple, but also very dangerous. Here’s why.

With the transfer of US combat drones, we may see American operators directly involved in their usage in combat. And the dangerous part is that these operators don’t even need to be stationed in Ukraine. The “Reaper” drones can be controlled via satellite links. The operator may be located somewhere in Germany, Italy or even the US mainland. And the legally gray area comes with the possible transfer of jurisdiction over these operators to the official Ukrainian military command. Strictly speaking, even though this would still mean that the US and NATO wouldn’t be directly involved, in case that the Kremlin finds about it (which it most certainly would), they would hardly see it as non-involvement. And if Moscow is to see it that way, we are talking about what would basically be direct US intervention. And we all know what kind of danger that poses to the world.

The obvious question arises – what should Russia do in that case? Decades of diplomatic efforts by the Kremlin have fallen on deaf ears. Why would the ever increasingly belligerent West listen to reason now, after doing everything in their power to push Ukraine into this bloodbath and after investing trillions to encircle Russia and weaken its position in Europe and the post-Soviet near abroad? Russia’s massive advantage, both qualitative and quantitative, in developing and deploying hypersonic weapons doesn’t seem to deter the US. Not even the recent combat usage of the “Kinzhal”, a highly maneuverable air-launched hypersonic weapon, in service with the Russian Aerospace Forces since 2017, doesn’t seem to deter the US. One way or the other, Russia will simply not allow the US to kill Russian soldiers with impunity. Is Washington DC so out of touch with reality, that they’re ready to raise the stakes so high?

And if anyone is to think this is plain paranoia and that it is based on circumstantial evidence, Russia’s reaction in recent days most certainly isn’t. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has recently “strongly advised” against sending additional US weapons to Ukraine. While Russia has protested NATO arming of the Kiev regime for years, this is the first time it has issued a stark warning to the United States. Now, Russia may not need to strike targets in the US mainland, but since these combat drones need to fly from somewhere, this may well be NATO airports in Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania or any other NATO member state, all of which are in the striking distance of Russian ballistic, cruise or hypersonic missiles. The question remains, what’s next?

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

Featured image is from Donbass Insider

---

“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute  

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***

Once-overlooked prescient warnings, conveyed through black-and-white grainy footage, reach through history like that dead girl in Carrie. They haunt all the more forcefully given the foresight it took to make them.

We’ve all heard of the military-industrial complex (MIC) – the escalating intertwining of the national security apparatus and the private weapons industry. It produces an irresistible economic/political incentive for reckless, endless war.

Its characteristics are unique in many ways, but in others, the MIC is merely another iteration of the essential problem of intersecting corporate and state interests — their chief mutual interest being the accumulation of greater and greater concentrations of power for themselves.

Mussolini described the phenomenon like this in the early 20^th century:

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
-Benito Mussolini

The gears of private industry are lavishly oiled with public money. In turn, the public decision-makers (bureaucrats), who are theoretically tasked with acting in the public’s interests, receive innumerable benefits — both while in office and especially after leaving, including appointments to lucrative board positions, gifted stock options, etc.

Interests across the two domains (state and private sector) – which theoretically remain separate in liberal ideology — become so intertwined that distinguishing one from the other is impossible.

To set the context of the MIC’s inaugural insertion into public consciousness, in 1961, the United States had just recently risen over the ashes of war-ravaged Europe to claim the throne as the global hegemon.

The industrial-scale arms industry remained a relatively new advent, and so the MIC was largely a new phenomenon in human history. If all of its elements weren’t entirely new, the MIC was at least a new incarnation of the inherent and ancient issue of state usurpation of power by private interests for personal and in-group gain.

Eisenhower introduced the MIC into the American psyche, coining the term in his farewell address from the Oval Office:

Via the president’s January 17, 1961 farewell speech:

“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . .Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

We’ve previously covered the most recent glaring example of the MIC in action – US generals dutifully crying on television about the Afghanistan pullout. Their defense industry sponsors/owners directed them to fear-monger about ending a 20-year losing war – to keep the gravy train rolling, for at least another year – and they complied.

The Afghanistan war, incidentally, produced no tangible outcome of value for any American except the defense contractors who paid Jack Keane to promote it on cable news. Defense contractors, in addition to buying spokesmen like Keane, also purchase advertising on said corporate media channel in exchange for war propaganda that favors healthy stock prices.

It’s all very incestuous, and, at the core, it’s all funded at the public’s expense via the US treasury.

As we will see — as Eisenhower explains himself in the portion of the speech that often goes overlooked in favor of the famous line about the MIC — the same types of public-private mechanisms are currently playing out in the biomedical context:

“Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present–and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

If you’ve been paying attention to the last two years’ events, that excerpt should send shivers down your spine.

The MIC and the biomedical state – administered by the “scientific-technological elite” — are a single entity. They’re one and the same, different feathers of the same bird. They each conduct the business of technocratic social management in their own way. One produces kinetic and chemical weaponry; the other, biological weaponry.

Their methods differ, but their interests are the same.

Here’s a case study:

EcoHealth Alliance tried to entice DARPA – the scientific arm of the Pentagon — to join in on the same Wuhan coronavirus gain-of-function that the organization illicitly conducted in China in partnership with the CCP. (EcoHealth Alliance being the organization Fauci funneled government money to for gain-of-function research in that same Chinese WIV government-run lab.)

Via DRASTIC Research:

“EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) in concert with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) attempted to carry out advanced and dangerous human pathogenicity Bat Coronavirus research that would clearly qualify as Gain of Function (GoF), in a grant proposal submitted to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 2018.”

What we’re looking at is a transnational, public-private grant proposal involving multiple state and private actors collaborating to engineer deadly new viruses.

The application actually proposed spraying aerosolized viruses into wild bat caves – just to see what happened:

“The grant proposal includes some elements of research that are already public via scientific papers, as well as other elements that have never been made public, including vaccinating wild bats using aerosolized viruses and further work on published and unpublished strains that could have directly produced SARS-CoV-2.”

The Pentagon apparently, according to the leaked documents, shot down the proposal – not on the grounds that this was a ludicrous and dangerous project, and, in practice, would constitute an act of war against China, but on a technicality.

Two years later, by mere coincidence, if you believe the official narrative, a deadly bat coronavirus naturally emerged from a Wuhan wet market – the exact type of virus that EcoHealth Alliance proposed spraying into the wild in the exact geographical area.

Whether DARPA was involved or not in the eventual release of SARS-CoV-2 into the wild is largely irrelevant for this point. The mere fact that Peter Daszak, Fauci and Co. knew this kind of activity to be in DARPA’s wheelhouse demonstrates the deep ties between the various arms of the now-transnational biomedical technocratic complex.

Eisenhower’s warning from six decades ago begs the question: what are the prescient warnings offered today that coming generations will look back on in awe?

*

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This article was originally published on The Daily Bell.

Ben Bartee is a Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. Follow his stuff via Armageddon Prose, Substack, Patreon, Gab, and Twitter. Please support his independent operations however you can.

Featured image: President Dwight D. Eisenhower (National Archives)

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***

From the beginning, the official COVID-19 narrative has been inconsistent, hypocritical and/or contradictory because medical authorities used double standards to create the illusion their narrative was logical and sensible.

We are not only in an epidemiological crisis, we also are in an epistemological crisis. How do we know what we know? What differentiates opinion from a justified belief?

For nearly two years, the public has been inundated by a sophisticated messaging campaign that urges us to “trust the science.”

But how can a non-scientist know what the science is really saying?

Legacy media sources offer us an easy solution: “Trust us.”

Legions of so-called “independent” fact-checking sites that serve to eliminate any wayward thinking keep those with a modicum of skepticism in line.

“Research” has been redefined to mean browsing Wikipedia citations.

Rather than being considered for their merit, dissenting opinions are more easily dismissed as misinformation by labeling their source as untrustworthy.

How do we know these sources are untrustworthy? They must be if they offer a dissenting opinion!

This form of circular reasoning is the central axiom of all dogmatic systems of thought. Breaking the spell of dogmatic thinking is not easy, but it is possible.

In this article I describe six examples of double standards medical authorities have used to create the illusion their COVID-19 narrative is logical and sensible.

This illusion has been used with devastating effect to raise vaccine compliance.

Rather than citing scientific publications or expert opinions that conflict with our medical authorities’ narrative — information that will be categorically dismissed because it appears on The Defender — I will instead demonstrate how, from the beginning, the official narrative has been inconsistent, hypocritical and/or contradictory.

1. COVID deaths are ‘presumed,’ but vaccine deaths must be ‘proven’

As of April 8, VAERS included 26,699 reports of deaths following COVID vaccines.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officially acknowledges only nine of these.

In order to establish causality, the CDC requires autopsies to rule out any possible etiology of death before the agency will place culpability on the vaccine.

But the CDC uses a very different standard when it comes to identifying people who died from COVID.

The 986,000 COVID deaths reported by the CDC here are, as footnote [1] indicates, “Deaths with confirmed or presumed [emphasis added] COVID-19.”

If a person dies with a positive PCR test or is presumed to have COVID, the CDC will count that as COVID-19 death.

Note that in the CDC’s definition, a COVID fatality does not mean the person died from the disease, only with the disease.

Why is an autopsy required to establish a COVID vaccine death but not to establish a COVID death?

Conversely, why is recent exposure to SARS-CoV-2 prior to a death sufficient to establish causality — but recent exposure to a vaccine considered coincidental?

2. CDC uses VAERS data to investigate myocarditis yet claims VAERS data on vaccine deaths is unreliable

On June 23, 2021, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met to assess the risk of peri/myocarditis following COVID vaccination, especially in young males.

This was the key slide in this presentation:

The observed risk of myocarditis is 219 in about 4.3 million second doses of COVID vaccine in males 18 to 24 years old.

The CDC is fine with using VAERS data to assess risk of myocarditis following vaccination — yet the agency rejects all but nine of the 26,699 reports of deaths following the vaccines.

Why does the CDC trust the peri/myocarditis data in VAERS but not the data on deaths?

One reason may be because the onset of myocarditis symptoms is closely tied to the time of vaccination.

In other words, because this condition closely follows inoculation the two events are highly correlated and suggestive of causation.

For example, here is another slide from the same presentation:

The majority of cases of vaccine-induced peri/myocarditis suffered symptoms within the first few days after injection. As explained above, this is highly suggestive of a causative effect of the vaccine.

A recent study in The Lancet included a similar graph, taken directly from VAERS, on deaths following vaccination:

Once again, the event (death) closely follows vaccination in the majority of cases.

As we regard the two graphs above we should acknowledge that the temporal relationship between the injection and the adverse event is suggestive of causation but does not stand as proof of such.

However, it is also important to note that if the vaccination caused the deaths, that is exactly what the plot would look like.

It should be clear that the CDC has no justification for dismissing VAERS deaths if the agency is willing to accept reports of myo/pericarditis from the very same reporting system.

3. CDC pushes ‘relative risk’ for determining vaccine efficacy, but uses ‘absolute risk’ to downplay risk of adverse events

In Pfizer’s Phase 3 trial, nine times more placebo recipients developed severe COVID than those vaccinated during the short period of observation. This constitutes a relative risk reduction of 90%.

This seemed an encouraging finding and was used as a major talking point to compel the public to accept this experimental therapy despite the absence of any long-term data.

However, the risk of a trial participant contracting severe COVID (Table S5) was 1 in 21,314 (0.0047%) if they were vaccinated.

If they received the placebo, the risk was still only 9 in 21,259 (0.0423%).

The vaccine reduced the absolute risk of contracting severe disease by 0.038%.

Mainstream media and the CDC never mentioned the minuscule reduction in absolute risk of contracting severe COVID by getting inoculated.

Moreover, with 0.6% of vaccine recipients in the trial suffering a serious vaccine injury (one that results in death, medical or surgical intervention, hospitalization or an impending threat to life), approximately 16 serious adverse events will result for every serious case of COVID prevented by vaccination.

However, when it comes to risk of myo/pericarditis, the CDC states, “Myocarditis and pericarditis have rarely been reported, especially in adolescents and young adult males within several days after COVID-19 vaccination.”

The CDC further states, “While absolute risk remains small, the risk for myocarditis is higher for males ages 12 to 39 years…”

In other words, the risk of adverse events is being considered in absolute terms, not relative.

The CDC presentation slide above (Table 1) indicates the relative risk of contracting myo/pericarditis in males 18 to 24 is 27 to more than 200 times higher than expected in (unvaccinated) young men that age.

When assuaging the public’s fear around vaccine-induced myocarditis, the CDC finds it useful to cite absolute risk — yet when promoting the efficacy of the vaccine, the CDC emphasizes relative risks.

This double standard has been quietly and masterfully employed to reduce vaccine hesitancy and encourage compliance.

4. FDA requires randomized control studies for early treatment medications — but not for boosters

The CDC reports that as of April 8, 98.3 million Americans had received a COVID booster.

On March 29, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized a second booster for the immunocompromised and adults over age 50.

These authorizations were made not because of solid evidence the boosters are effective but rather to remedy the fact that the primary vaccine series has been widely shown to have waning efficacy within a few months.

As reported by The Defender, Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s vaccine division, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, admitted the fourth booster dose approved last week was a “stopgap measure” — in other words, a temporary measure to be implemented until a proper solution may be found in the future.

Despite the lack of solid evidence, the FDA continues to recommend and authorize boosters.

Yet when it comes to early treatment options, the agency holds medicines — including those the agency has already licensed and approved for other uses — to a different standard.

In this CNN interview from August 2021, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warns people not to take ivermectin for COVID because “there is no clinical evidence that this works.”

With regard to hydroxychloroquine, Fauci said, “We know that every single good study —  and by good study, I mean randomized control study in which the data are firm and believable — has s shown that hydroxychloroquine is not effective in the treatment of Covid-19”, as reported by the BBC on July 29, 2020.

Where, then, are the randomized control studies in which the data are firm and believable that show boosters are effective at preventing COVID?

There aren’t any. None have been done.

As of today, the FDA still refuses to authorize the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID despite hundreds of studies that demonstrate significant benefits (ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine) in prevention as well as early and late treatment.

The double standard here is blatant. There are no randomized control studies that show boosters are effective in preventing COVID.

Nevertheless, these experimental therapies have the FDA’s blessing while inexpensive, highly effective safe and proven medicines are ignored despite the enormous evidence that supports their use.

5. FDA uses immunobridging to justify Pfizer shots for young kids, but rejects antibodies as indicative of immune protection from COVID

Immunobridging is a method of inferring a vaccine’s effectiveness in preventing disease by assessing its ability to elicit an immune response through the measurement of biochemical markers, typically antibody levels.

The FDA asserts the presence of SARS-COV-2 antibodies is not necessarily indicative of immune protection from COVID.

Moreover, the FDA’s Vaccine and Related Biologics Product Advisory Committee reached a consensus last week that antibody levels cannot be used as a correlate for vaccine effectiveness.

Their decision is consistent with the CDC’s executive summary of a science brief released on October 29, 2021:

“Data are presently insufficient to determine an antibody titer threshold that indicates when an individual is protected from infection.”

Nevertheless, the FDA used immunobridging as a means to justify authorization of the Pfizervaccine to children ages 5 to 11, as explained in The Defender here and here.

Because there were no deaths or serious cases of COVID in the pediatric trial, the FDA chose to reject its own position (and that of its advisory committee) regarding antibody titers as a correlate for vaccine efficacy.

6. Causation must be proven for vaccine injuries, but correlation suffices for proving vaccine efficacy

When it comes to vaccine injuries the public is often reminded that correlation does not equal causation.

In other words, just because an injury was preceded by inoculation doesn’t mean the vaccine caused the injury.

But what constitutes causation in medicine? A mechanism of action needs to be identified and pathological studies must confirm this mechanism while eliminating other potential causative factors. Causation can be proven only on a case-by-case basis.

Proving causation requires an enormous burden of proof in medicine.

For example, does smoking cause lung cancer? The answer is yes, it can. That doesn’t mean that it will.

However, when it comes to the benefit of medical intervention, such as a vaccine, causation does not have to be established. Correlation suffices.

In the COVID vaccine trials, fewer vaccinated people contracted COVID than unvaccinated ones. Yet there were those who received the vaccine who contracted the disease anyway.

To be fair, this is how all new medical interventions are evaluated. The benefit doesn’t have to be caused by the vaccine in the strictest sense, there just has to be a correlation between vaccination and a relative protective effect.

The more often this happens, the more confident we can be that the outcome wasn’t simply a coincidence.

Likewise, when it comes to assessing the harm of medical intervention, the most sensible outcome to consider is mortality. After all, what would be the point of introducing a vaccine that prevented some deaths while causing more?

Nevertheless, this is, in fact, what we have done with the Pfizer product. The interim results from the Phase 3 trial demonstrated that all-cause mortality in the vaccinated cohort was higher than in the placebo.

This glaring problem gets brushed aside because there were two deaths from COVID in the placebo arm versus just one in the vaccinated cohort, allowing the vaccine manufacturer to claim a 50% efficacy in preventing this outcome.

However, if we attribute a protective benefit to the vaccine in preventing this one fatality, we must also conclude that the vaccine was responsible for the extra death when considering mortality from all causes.

Doing otherwise would be applying yet another double standard.

How the pandemic could have played out differently

To summarize how devastating the use of these double standards in crafting the “safe and effective” narrative was, let’s look at how different the situation would be if we had adopted the opposite standard:

1. There would have been an extremely low number of deaths from COVID. Very few, if any, autopsies have definitively confirmed that a fatality was caused by SARS-CoV-2. If confirmation by autopsy is the standard, there have been essentially zero deaths from COVID during the pandemic.
   On the other hand, if we presume the deaths registered in VAERS are in fact vaccine-induced fatalities — similar to how the CDC presumed many deaths from COVID — we can affirm there have been more than 26,000 vaccine deaths.
2. Using absolute risk reduction as a measure of efficacy, vaccines would have been widely rejected as ineffective, providing only a 0.038% risk reduction for contracting severe COVID.
3. Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine would have been readily available for people who got COVID. And for those who got the vaccine but got COVID anyway, these medicines would have been a great alternative to boosters, which wouldn’t have been approved due to the lack of a single randomized control study proving they work.
4. No children between the ages of 5 and 11 would have received this risky, experimental vaccine as it wouldn’t have been authorized for this age group — because Pfizer’s pediatric trials did not demonstrate any meaningful outcomes in children ages 5 to 11.
5. The Pfizer vaccine would no longer be in use because interim data demonstrated that all-cause mortality is higher in the vaccinated.

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Madhava Setty, M.D. is senior science editor for The Defender.

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Imperial proprietorship over the small Caribbean Island of Cuba, from the United States’ perspective, has been from its earliest founding understood as a foredrawn conclusion, a predetermined inexorable; a geographical inevitable.

Heads of State, from Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe to John Quincy Adams et al. shared a similar conviction, “[that Cuba’s] proximity did indeed seem to suggest destiny, a destiny unanimously assumed to be manifest.”ⁱ Through the mid 19th century, US opinion toward Cuba was made jingoistically evident by Secretary of State John Clayton, “This Government,” he advised, “is resolutely determined that the island of Cuba, shall never be ceded by Spain to any other power than the United States.”ⁱⁱ

The Secretary went on to define his nation’s hardened and inalterable commitment to the possession of the island, “The news of the cession of Cuba to any foreign power would, in the United States, be the instant signal for war.”ⁱⁱⁱ

These assertions were now foundational, as reiterated by Indiana Senator (and historian) Albert J. Beveridge in 1901,

“Cuba ‘[is] an object of transcendent importance to the political and commercial interests of our Union’ and ‘[is] indispensable to the continuance and integrity of the Union itself,’”^ivsentiments that were (later) codified into the Cuban Constitution by the US (after the Spanish/American war of 1898) in the form of the Platt Amendment^v ratified in 1903.

Which Louis A. Perez soberly describes as, “[An] Amendment [that] deprived the [Cuban] republic of the essential properties of sovereignty while preserving its appearance, permitting self-government but precluding self-determination,”^vi in contradiction to (Cuba’s heroic bard of national emancipation) José Martí’s 19^th century grand-vision of a truly liberated and self-governing island nation.

In fact, this historic outlook permeates US strategy toward Cuba for the next century; merged in a complex web of amicable approbation combined with antagonistic condemnation, defiance, resentment, and ruin – all converging at a flashpoint called the Cuban Revolution of 1959, which not only shocked and bewildered US policymakers, but, for the first time, challenged their historic preconceptions of US hegemonic (i.e., imperial hemispheric) dominance. One man stood at the center of their bewilderment, criticism, disdain, and resentment: Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz. Thus, US policy then directed at Cuba, by the early 1960s, was designed to punish this man, the small island nation, and its people, for his disobedience and defiance; and, as such, was intentionally aimed at destabilizing all efforts of rapprochement, as long as he (Castro) remained alive.

Although US intelligence (throughout the 1950s) provided the Eisenhower administration with a thorough history delineating the dangers of instability looming throughout the island, commanded by then military despot and “strong-man” Fulgencio Batista (who seized his return to power in an army-coup in 1952), the US foolishly continued to provide economic, logistical and materiel support to the unpopular and graft-driven dictatorship.^vii

US intelligence understood the potential danger posed by “[this] young reformist leader”^viii Fidel Castro and his band of revolutionaries. Castro and the 26th of July movement were a defiant response to what they considered a foreign controlled reactionary government.^ix

This response stood as a direct threat to the natural order of things, i.e., the US’s historic prohibition (beyond legalistic euphemisms and platitudes)^x of any genuine vestige of national sovereignty and self-determination by the Cuban people – which undergirded a belief that, like most Latin American states, the Cuban people were innately “child-like,” incapable of true self-governance.^xi Beyond that, after the ousting of Batista, and “flush with victory,” a young Fidel Castro, on January 2, 1959 (in Santiago de Cuba), assertively threw down the gauntlet, “this time, fortunately for Cuba, the revolution will not be thwarted. It won’t be as in 1895, when the Americans came in at the last hour ‘and made themselves masters of the country.’”^xii

Hence, as Jeffery J. Safford makes evident, this existential risk, in the minds of US policymakers, would have to be dealt with, embraced, evaluated, and analyzed (at least initially)^xiii in order to maintain the desired outcome – i.e., evading Communist influence and maintaining economic “stability” through the protection of US interests on the island of Cuba no matter the cost.

In March of 1960, while naively underestimating Castro’s success and support on the island, “the Eisenhower administration secretly made a formal decision to re-conquer Cuba … with a proviso: it had to be done in such a way that the US hand would not be evident.”^xiv

Ultimately, US policymakers wanted to avoid a broader “backlash of instability” throughout the hemisphere by overtly invading the small island nation. That said, Castro and his revolutionaries understood the stark realities and nefarious possibilities cast over them, given the US’s history of flagrant regime change throughout the region. Castro’s accusations as presented at the United Nations, on 26 September 1960, which declared that US leaders were (intending if not) preparing to invade Cuba, were dismissed by the New York Times as “shrill with … anti-American propaganda.”^xv

Furthermore, Castro was ridiculed, by US representative James J. Wadsworth, as having “Alice in Wonderland fantasies”^xvi of an invasion. But Castro’s committed revolutionary coterie knew better, “In Guatemala in 1954 [Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara witnessed] the first U.S. Cold War intervention [in the region] as U.S.-trained and backed counter-revolutionary forces overthrew the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz…”^xvii

In fact, similarly, the imminent Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) orchestrated assault, known as the Bay of Pigs (BOPs) invasion, under the Kennedy administration in April 1961, was heavily reliant upon anti-revolutionary factions, the Cuban people, and the military, rising up to join the invaders^xviii – which as history proves, and journalist/author David Talbot underscores, did not come to pass:

To avoid Arbenz’s fate, Castro and Guevara would do everything he had not: put the hard-cored thugs of the old regime up against a wall, run the CIA’s agents out of the country, purge the armed forces, and mobilize the Cuban people … Fidel and Che became an audacious threat to the American empire. They represented the most dangerous revolutionary idea of all – the one that refused to be crushed.^xix

This became an epic ideological battle in the myopic mind of US officials: the possible proliferation of an assortment of “despotic” Communist controlled fiefdoms vs. the-free-world! Indeed, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., special aide and historian to President John F. Kennedy in 1961-63, ominously warned the Executive, that “the spread of the Castro idea of taking matters into one’s own hands,”^xx had great appeal in Cuba (and throughout Latin America), i.e., everywhere that, “distribution of land and other forms of national wealth greatly favor[ed] the propertied classes … [thus] the poor and underprivileged, stimulated by the example of the Cuban revolution, [were] now demanding opportunities for a decent living.”^xxi This was the urgent and fundamental threat (or challenge) Fidel Castro and his movement posed to US hemispheric rule.

US media focused heavily on the plight of the “majority middleclass” Cuban exiles, that chose to leave the island as a result of the revolution’s redistributive polices.^xxii

Cubans, particularly the initial waves, were dispossessed of substantial wealth and position and often arrived Stateside in chiefly worse conditions.^xxiii But the essential question as to, “why the [majority of] Cuban people [stood] by the Castro ‘dictatorship’?,”^xxiv as Michael Parenti contends, was ignored by public officials and the press alike:

Not a word appeared in the U.S. press about the advances made by ordinary Cubans under the Revolution, the millions who for the first time had access to education, literacy, medical care, decent housing [and] jobs … offering a better life than the free-market misery endured under the U.S.-Batista ancient régime.^xxv

Castro’s revolutionary ideals based on José Martí’s patriotic theme of national sovereignty and self-determination, effectively armed the Cuban people through a stratagem of socialist ideology and wealth redistribution meshed in a formula of land reform and social services (i.e., education, healthcare, jobs and housing) which included the nationalization of foreign owned businesses; as such, US policymakers believed, “His continued presence within the hemispheric community as a dangerously effective exponent of ‘Communism’ and Anti-Americanism constitutes a real menace capable of eventually overthrowing the elected governments in any one or more ‘weak’ Latin American republics.”^xxvi Fidel Castro was thus wantonly placed within the crosshairs of US covert-action.

American officials assumed that the elimination of Castro was central to the suppression of his socialist principles, as Alan McPherson demonstrates, “In fall 1961, after the [BOPs] disaster, [JFK] gave the order to resume covert plans to get rid of Castro, if not explicitly to assassinate him.”^xxvii

Earlier in 1960, then CIA director, Allen Dulles’ hardline that Castro was a devoted Communist and threat to US security “mirrored [those] of the business world such as, William Pawley, the globetrotting millionaire entrepreneur whose major investments in Cuban sugar plantations and Havana’s municipal transportation system were wiped out by Castro’s revolution.”^xxviii

Thus, US officials, the Security State and US business-interests were unified, “After Fidel rode into Havana on a tank in January 1959, Pawley [a capitalist scion] who was gripped by what Eisenhower called a ‘pathological hatred for Castro,’ even volunteered to pay for his assassination.”^xxix

Countless attempts followed, thus, killing Castro became vital to the idea of US hemispheric “stability,” i.e., capitalist economic and ideological control; and as such, Intelligence Services believed, “[The] political vulnerability of the regime lies in the person of Castro himself…”^xxx

Hence, the purging of Fidel Castro and the cessation of his ideas, through the punishment of the Cuban people, became not only the strategy of choice for the US, but its incessant authoritative doctrine. Accordingly, as longtime US diplomat to Cuba, Wayne Smith verifies, the US’s two overarching obsessive qualms which it believed required the eradication of Fidel Castro were: the long-term influence of his revolutionary socialist ideals in Latin America and beyond; and, the possible establishment of a successful Communist state on the island which would diminish US security, stature, image, influence and prestige in the hemisphere; and, in the eyes of the world.^xxxi

Through 1960-64, Castro had good reason to be on guard, “…the fact that the Kennedy administration was acutely embarrassed by the unmitigated defeat [at the BOPs] -indeed because of it- a campaign of smaller-scale attacks upon Cuba was initiated almost immediately.”^xxxii

Then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy stated unequivocally, as Schlesinger reveals, that his goal, “was to bring the terrors of the Earth to Cuba.”^xxxiii

RFK went on to emphasize the point that the eradication of the Castro “regime” was the US’s central policy concern,

“He informed the CIA that the Cuban problem carries, ‘…top priority in the United States Government -all else is secondary- no time, no effort, or manpower is to be spared.’”^xxxiv

Beyond the multifaceted covert actions directed at Cuba under Operation Mongoose, RFK and the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, aided by the CIA et al., implemented a long-term multi-pronged plan of punishment, focused on Cuba through Latin America, which included disinformation campaigns, subversion and sabotage (they called hemispheric-defense-policies) that comprised a Military Assistance Program (MAP), which included economic support, subversive tactical training and materiel, devised to terminate “the threat” (i.e., Castro and his ideas) by establishing an Inter-American-Security-Force (of obedient states) under US control.^xxxv

With Cuba now in the crosshairs, in the early 1960s, “the CIA … played savior to the [anti-Castro] émigrés, building a massive training station in Miami, known as JMWave, that became the agency’s second largest after Langley, Virginia. In fact, it coordinated the training of what became known as the disastrous landing … in 1961.”^xxxvi

Conversely, historian Daniel A. Sjursen focuses more on JFK (than the CIA) as the culprit behind the heightened tensions amongst the three principal players. By 1962, with Cuba in the middle, both superpowers (the US and the USSR) stood at a standstill amid the very real possibility of a global conflagration which, Sjursen states, was primarily due to US bravado on behalf of a “military obsessed” young President, “In preparing for a May 1961 summit meeting with Khrushchev [Kennedy stated] ‘I’ll have to show him that we can be as though as he is….’”^xxxvii

Sjursen argues,

“This flawed and simplistic thinking grounded just about every Kennedy decision in world affairs from 1961 to 1963 … and would eventually bring the world to the brink of destruction with the Cuban Missile Crisis; and, suck the US military into a disastrous unwinnable war in Vietnam.”^xxxviii

And yet, as Smith contends, Kennedy was certainly not without bravado, but ultimately, did make attempts to “defuse” the situation. Kennedy, Smith discloses, ruffled-feathers within the Security State by,

1) his desire to end the Cold War,

2) his starting of a rapprochement with Castro (who was desirous of such — even if indirectly) and, 3) his goal to pull-out of Vietnam.^xxxix

In fact, with the Kennedy-Khrushchev negotiations finalized by JFK’s promise not to invade Cuba if Soviet warheads were removed from the island – Khrushchev acquiesced, to Castro’s dismay, but tensions did diminish.^xl

Be that as it may, Philip Brenner maintains, the crisis did not go-away on 28 October 1962 for either the US or the USSR. The Kennedy-Khrushchev arrangements had to be implemented. On 20 November, the US Strategic Air Command was still on high alert: full readiness for war – with the naval quarantine (i.e., blockade) firmly in place.^xli

As a result, Castro stayed open to negotiations with the US, but at the same time purposefully cautious.

“At this point Castro, like Kennedy and Khrushchev, was circumventing his own more bellicose government in order to dialog with the enemy. Castro, too, was struggling, [but willing,] to transcend his Cold War ideology for the sake of peace. Like Kennedy and Khrushchev both, [he knew,] he had to walk softly.”^xlii

Nevertheless, Castro stressed the fact that the Soviet Union had no right to negotiate with the US per inspections or the return of the bombers, “Instead, he announced, Cuba would be willing to comply based on [specific] demands: that the United States end the economic embargo; stop subversive activities … cease violations of Cuban airspace; and, return Guantanamo Naval Base.”^xliii Of course, the United States security apparatus was arrogantly steadfast in its refusal to agree or even negotiate the matter.^xliv

In spite of that, a reproachment (devised by Kennedy diplomat, William Attwood, and, Castro representative to the UN Carlos Lechuga) was surreptitiously endeavored through a liaison, journalist Jean Daniel of the New Republic, who stated that, Kennedy, retrospectively, criticized the pro-Batista policies of the fifties for “economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation” of the island and added that, “we shall have to pay for those sins….”^xlv Which may be considered one of the most brazenly honest statements, regarding the island, on behalf of an American President, in the long and complex history of US/Cuban relations.

Daniel then wrote, “I could see plainly that John Kennedy had doubts [about the government’s policies toward Cuba] and was seeking a way out.”^xlvi

In spite of JFK’s pugnacious rhetoric directed at Cuba, during his 1960 Presidential campaign, Castro remained open and accommodating, he understood the forces arrayed upon the President, in fact, he saw Kennedy’s position as an unenviable one:

I don’t think a President of the United States is ever really free … and I also believe he now understands the extent to which he has been misled.^xlvii …I know that for Khrushchev, Kennedy is a man you can talk with….^xlviii

While in the middle of (an Attwood arranged and Kennedy sanctioned) clandestine meeting with Castro, Daniel reported, that (at 2pm Cuban-time) the news arrived that JFK was dead (shot in Dallas, Texas, on that very same day, 22 November 1963, at 12:30pm), “Castro stood-up , looked at me [dismayed], and said ‘Everything is going to change,…’”^xlix and he was spot-on. Consequently, with (newly sworn-in) President Lyndon Baines Johnson mindful of the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald was “proclaimed” a Castro devotee, accommodations with the Cuban government would be much more difficult. As such, the Attwood-Lechuga connection was terminated.^l Julian Borger, journalist for the Guardian, maintains that “Castro saw Kennedy’s killing as a setback, [he] tried to restart a dialogue with the next administration, but LBJ was … too concerned [with] appearing soft on communism,”^li meaning opinion polls, and their consequences, trumped keeping channels of communication open with the Cuban government. Which obliquely implies the notion that relations with Cuba might have been different if JFK had not been murdered.

With the Johnson administration bogged down in an “unwinnable war” in Southeast Asia and Civil Rights battles occurring on the streets of the US, Cuba and its revolution began to fall off the radar. By 1964, the Johnson administration, concerned with public opinion, as mentioned, took swift and immediate action to stop the deliberate terror perpetrated on the Cuban people. LBJ, in April of that year, called for a cessation of sabotage attacks. Johnson openly admitted, “we had been operating a damned Murder, Inc., in the Caribbean.’”^lii

Nonetheless, the national security apparatus (i.e., the CIA, the Joint-Chiefs and military intelligence) along with US policymakers (and US based exile groups), remained obstinate, steadfast and consistent in their goal – to punish (if not kill) Fidel Castro and his revolution, by maintaining a punitive program of economic strangulation with the hopes that Castro would be, not only isolated on the world stage, but condemned by his own people who would rise up and eradicate the man and his socialist regime – which did not occur. Of course, the termination of hostilities directive ordered by Johnson did not include economic enmity – which persisted throughout the 1960s and beyond. In fact, a CIA field-agent appointed to anti-Castro operations detailed the agency’s sadistic objectives as expressed through author John Marks, by explaining:

Agency officials reasoned, … that it would be easier to overthrow Castro if Cubans could be made unhappy with their standard of living. ‘We wanted to keep bread out of the stores so people were hungry … We wanted to keep rationing in effect….’”^liii

The purpose of the economic blockade remained fixed from the early 60s onward: to contain, defame, discredit and destroy Castro and his experimentation with, what the US considered, subversive Communist ideals.

Finally, the US’s belligerent, if not insidious, hardline-stance toward this small island nation reignited at the end of the 1960s, which included not only an economic strangle-hold, but full-blown underground sabotage operations. The 37th president of the United States, Richard M. “Nixon’s first acts in office in 1969 was to direct the CIA to intensify its covert [Hybrid War] operations against Cuba.”^liv Nixon and his then National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, still believed, callously, that military aggression, violence, brutality and intimidation (coalesced by vicious economic sanctions) were the answers to America’s woes abroad.

US policy toward Cuba for more than sixty-years is reminiscent of a famous quote often attributed to Albert Einstein: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result.” Hence, Castro’s Cuba (not only America’s nemesis, but also the model of an uncompromising US global order) was the consequence of an even longer and persistent imperial US foreign policy: If the United States had not impeded Cuba’s push for national sovereignty and self-determination in the initial part of the 20th century; if it had not sustained a sequence of tyrannical despots on the island; and, if it had not been complicit in the termination and manipulation of the 1952 election, an ineradicable character such as the young reformist, and socialist,

Fidel Castro may never have materialized.^lvUltimately, the headstrong US stratagem of assassination and suffocation of Castro and his socialist revolution failed, not only by bolstering his image on the island, but abroad as well. Ironically, the US helped to create its own oppositional exemplar of resistance, in the image of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and the Cuban people, i.e., the revolution – two men and a small island nation that stood up defiantly to the US led global-capitalist-order and would not relent. The US feared the Revolution of 1959’s challenge to class-power, colonialization; and, its popularity with the multitudes – thus, it had to be forcefully restricted through malicious policies of trade-embargoes, threats of violence and ideological-isolation.

In fact, the Cuban rebellion courageously and tenaciously stood up to, and resisted, specific contrivances (or designs) by which the US had customarily, boastfully and self-admiringly delineated its dominant status through the forceful protection of its exploitative-business-practices (aka, the “Yankee boot”) on the backs of the Cuban people, for which, Fidel Castro and his bottom-up-populist-crusade were held ominously, insidiously and interminably responsible….

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Stephen Joseph Scott is an essayist associated with The University of Edinburgh, School of History; a singer/songwriter, humanist/activist – a self-taught musician, and performer. As a musician, he uses American Roots Music to illustrate the current American social and political landscape.

Notes

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Facebook briefly suspended the page of a Palestinian news site following its rolling coverage of the violent Israeli raid on al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday.

The Al-Qastal news site said on Saturday that Facebook had deleted its page without warning or explanation, causing it to lose thousands of followers. Hours later, however, the page announced it has been reinstated.

“Al-Qastal page is finally back after great efforts from its friends and lovers of al-Aqsa and al-Quds, who did not abandon it,” it said in a statement to Twitter.

Earlier, the news site said that its Facebook page had been deleted “without any introductions or advance warning… due to its extensive coverage of events of Jerusalem and al-Aqsa Mosque, despite the strict adherence to Facebook publishing standards”.

It remains unclear why Facebook had suspended Al-Qastal’s Arabic news page. The bilingual Jerusalem-based outlet accused the social media platform of yielding to pressure from Israeli authorities who aim to “silence the voices of Jerusalemites,” according to its intitial statement.

Earlier on Friday, Al-Qastal confirmed that Israeli forces had targeted two of its reporters during the unrest in East Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque.

More than 150 people were wounded and at least 400 arrested by Israeli forces who attacked worshippers inside the mosque in a four-hour raid.

Al-Qastal confirmed that Israeli forces had shot a stun grenade at the head of one of its reporters, Nesreen Salem, during her coverage of the assaults. Reporter Mohammed Samreen was also wounded, with a rubber-coated steel bullet in the leg. He was later detained in the mosque’s courtyard then taken to the Al Mascobiya interrogation centre, al-Qastal said.

It added that Facebook had previously imposed restrictions on its page without any explanation.

Censorship of Palestinians 

Meta, the California-based multinational conglomerate that owns Facebook and Instagram, has often been accused of censoring the experiences of Palestinians and their narrative on its platforms.

Hours after the Israeli raid on Friday, Dutch-Palestinian supermodel Bella Hadid claimed she was “shadow banned” by Instagram for posting about Palestine. Omar Suleiman, a prominent American-Muslim preacher, also claimed on Friday that his account was restricted.

Earlier this year, a Palestinian news page with over a million-and-a-half followers on Facebook was forced to shut down its operations in Jerusalem after the social media giant banned its account.

The Maydan al-Quds news network covered stories from Jerusalem for more than 18 months.

According to its director, Bilal Nour, Facebook closed the page in 2021, the same day as the killing of Palestinian man Fadi Abu Shkheidem by Israeli forces after he carried out a stabbing attack near the Chain Gate – one of the gates to al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Nour said his network was “totally impartial” in its reporting on the incident.

In November, Palestinian activists and journalists launched a campaign called “Facebook Censors Jerusalem” to raise awareness about Meta’s alleged efforts to censor Palestinian content on its flagship social media platform.

The bulk of what they say were incidents of censorship are said to have occurred in May 2021, during protests in solidarity with Palestinians who were facing the threat of expulsions in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, the storming by Israeli forces of al-Aqsa Mosque, the 11-day offensive in Gaza, and intercommunal violence in Palestinian-majority cities in Israel.

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Featured image is from Liberation News

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The Israeli Jewish colonial fundamentalist group “The Returning to the Mount,” which advocates the construction of a “Third Jewish temple” in al-Haram al-Sharif, the third holiest place in Islam, and is associated with the racist Kach group, announced this week that it plans to sacrifice animals as part of the Jewish Passover rituals on Friday in al-Haram.

In response, Hamas declared that it will not allow such rituals to take place and will prevent them “at any cost”. The Palestinian Authority and the Jordanian government also condemned the plans. Last February, the group, pretending to be Muslims, entered al-Haram al-Sharif and prayed there.

In view of the announcement of the animal sacrifices, the Jordanian-appointed director of the mosque issued a decision banning Muslim worshippers from remaining in isolation in the mosque, a common devotional practice for Muslim worshippers during Ramadan, until the last 10 days of Ramadan, that is, after the end of the passover.

Still, Palestinian worshippers insisted on remaining in the mosque last night to prevent the extremist group from entering al-Haram and were attacked this morning by Israeli security who injured more than one hundred worshippers.

A religious prohibition

After the 1967 conquest of East Jerusalem by the Israelis, Israel‘s then defence minister, Moshe Dayan, decided to allow the Palestinian-turned-Jordanian Waqf (religious endowment), which always administered al-Haram al-Sharif, or what Jews call “The Temple Mount,” to continue to administer it.

Israel’s Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis, along with hundreds of other rabbis, issued a Halachic ruling that it was forbidden for Jews to enter the area, let alone pray there, as that would be in violation of Jewish religious law, or Halacha, on account of the “impurity” of all Jews after the destruction of the Second Temple.

Even the fundamentalist rabbis, disciples of the zealot Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, many of whose followers became religious settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem after 1967, agreed with the religious prohibition.

Nonetheless, some of the extreme non-religious Zionist groups, especially those associated with the pre-state terrorist group Lehi, argued that the rabbis were wrong and that Jews should build a synagogue there. In 1969, an Australian Christian fundamentalist set fire to al-Aqsa Mosque and was arrested by the Israelis, alleged to be mentally ill, and deported years later.

It would be Shlomo Goren, the rabbi of the Israeli army, however, who in 1973 would become Israel’s chief Ashkenazi rabbi and who would weigh in more heavily on the matter. Goren argued that Jews could visit and pray in the areas of the ancient temple that had been expanded at the end of the Second Temple period, and that this would not be in violation of Halacha.

He argued that there was evidence that Jews had built a permanent prayer site on the “Mount” until the 16thcentury, a claim that historians contest.

In his zeal to allow Jews access to the Muslim shrines, Goren correctly claimed that the Western Wall had not been a Jewish prayer site until the 17th century and even then on account of Ottoman restrictions on Jewish worship elsewhere in al-Haram al-Sharif area.

Accessing Muslim shrines

In 1994, Goren wrote to prime minister Yitzhak Rabin that “we cannot claim rights at the Western Wall,” and that Jews should be allowed to pray all over the “Temple Mount” area.

Israel’s chief rabbis in the 1980s began to find the idea partially acceptable, and both its Sephardi and Ashkenazi chief rabbis proposed building a synagogue in the southeastern corner of the area, behind al-Aqsa Mosque, meaning outside al-Haram area, though the Sephardi rabbi insisted that the synagogue should be higher than the mosque.

Indeed, the Buraq Wall itself, or what is known in English as “the Western Wall,” let alone al-Haram al-Sharif, had never had a central religious importance as a prayer site for the Jews before the advent of Zionism.

While Palestinian Jews were allowed to pray there during Ottoman times, it was Zionist colonists and zealots who began to lay claim to the Wall, which instigated a number of violent confrontations with Palestinian Muslims in the 1920s, culminating in the 1929 violence that engulfed the country, which Palestinians refer to as “the Buraq Revolt,” and in which more than 200 Jews and Palestinians were killed.

In 1986, 70 rabbis convened by Goren issued a new injunction that permitted Jews to “enter and pray on the Temple Mount in most of its area,” and that a synagogue could indeed be built there.

By 1990, the Lubavitcher rabbi Menachem Schneersohn instructed his followers to hold celebrations in  al-Haram, while in the meantime, the “Temple Mount Faithful,” established in 1967 and led by one Gershon Salomon, were planning to lay the cornerstone for building the “Third Temple” on the grounds of al-Haram al-Sharif.

Salomon is an Israeli nationalist and was not religious at the time, although he seems to have become so by the mid 1990s, as reflected by his movement’s increasing religious-nationalist literature and its connections and financial ties to Christian fundamentalist groups.

Palestinians demonstrated against the plans of the Temple Mount Faithful. On 8 October, Israeli forces killed more than 20 Palestinian protesters and injured more than 150, which led to two UN resolutions that condemned the Israeli government’s use of force and its refusal to allow the UN secretary-general to visit al-Haram al-Sharif.

Suffice it to say that the massacre and the ensuing international uproar aborted Rabbi Schneersohn’s plans.

The Oslo factor

An even more radical Zionist group laying claim to an alleged Jewish “right” to occupy and pray in al-Haram al-Sharif is the Hai Ve-Kayam movement led by Yehuda Etzion, whose father was a member of the Terrorist Lehi group. Etzion spent seven years in Israeli jails for his membership of a Jewish terror group in the 1980s that sought to blow up the Dome of the Rock.

Eztion and his group would insist on praying in al-Haram, which forced the Israeli police to remove them, images of which galvanized more support for the movement in Israel’s colonial Jewish society whether religious or secular.

Other groups making similar claims include “Yemin Israel,” “Kach” and “Kahane Hai,” the “Temple Institute,” the “Movement to Establish the Temple,” and “Ateret Kohanim” among others.

Many of these groups were mobilised after the Oslo Accords for fear that the Palestinian Authority might be granted authority over al-Haram, and especially after the Israel-Jordan Peace Accords in 1994 in which Israel “respects” Jordan’s “special role… in the Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem”.

In February 1997, the Committee of Yesha Rabbis, a central component within the Zionist religious-nationalist colonial-settler movement, issued a ruling permitting rabbis who believe that Jews should pray in the Haram to do so.

In the meantime, many Israeli Supreme Court judges and politicians began to call on the government and the chief rabbinate to lift the prohibition on Jewish prayer in al-Haram. These efforts culminated in the visit staged by the leader of the Likud Party, Ariel Sharon, to al-Haram al-Sharif in September 2000 accompanied by Israel’s riot police.

Palestinian protests ensued, and four Palestinians were killed and dozens shot and injured. Sharon’s visit triggered the second Palestinian uprising, or Intifada. In the following week, Israel killed 70 Palestinians. Sharon was elected as Israel’s prime minister five months later.

Resistance goes on

Before 2003, the Israeli government began to allow no more than three religious Jews to visit al-Haram at a time, but since then has steadily increased that number to more than 50, and does so without the approval of the Islamic Waqf authorities.

By 2009, after making racist remarks about Palestinians, Israel’s Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonvitch of the right-wing Yisrael Beitenu party paid yet another visit to al-Haram. More Zionist provocations and desecrations continued. In September 2015, the Israeli government prevented Palestinians from entering  al-Haram to make way for Jews to go and pray there.

A Palestinian uprising ensued in which Israeli police shot scores of Palestinians. Whereas the Israeli government banned members of the Knesset from visiting al-Haram following the uprising, Benjamin Netanyahu lifted the ban in 2018.

In fact, the issue of whether Jews are Halachically allowed to enter let alone pray at al-Haram al-Sharif remains a major point of contention in Jewish religious circles in Israel, so much so that last year Netanyahu was rumoured to have concluded a deal with a conservative rabbi and head of a political party to temporarily bar Jews from entering al-Haram in exchange for joining his coalition government.

The ongoing Palestinian resistance against Israeli colonialism of the past few weeks, whether in Israel or in the West Bank and Gaza, has reached a fever pitch, with Israeli killings of Palestinians across the West Bank, especially in Jenin.

While Palestinians realise that settler-colonialism has targeted and continues to target the entire land of the Palestinians, the ongoing attempts to take over Palestinian Muslim holy places, whether in Jerusalem, Hebron, or in Nablus’ Maqam Yusuf al-Dwayk, a local saint, or what Zionist zealots allege is the biblical “Joseph’s Tomb,” continue apace, as does valiant Palestinian resistance to them.

While the Israelis had been corralling their supporters among Arab leaders in the last month, whether the Jordanian government to pressure the Palestinian Authority to repress any possible uprising during the current Holy month of Ramadan, or the Egyptian government to warn Hamas not to engage Israel as it represses West Bank and East Jerusalem Palestinians, the next couple of weeks may see such schemes falter.

Palestinian resistance and uprisings against the settler-colony have not ceased since the first arrival of Jewish colonists in the 1880s. Israel can call upon whatever Arab leaders it wants to help it quell Palestinian protest, but there is no reason to believe that the Palestinians will ever stop resisting as long as Zionist settler-colonialism remains.

*

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Joseph Massad is professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University, New York. He is the author of many books and academic and journalistic articles. His books include Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan; Desiring Arabs; The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians, and most recently Islam in Liberalism. His books and articles have been translated into a dozen languages.

Featured image is from Andrew Shiva / Wikimedia Commons

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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***

Former Monsanto Chairman and CEO Hugh Grant is currently in the news. He is trying to avoid appearing in court to be questioned by lawyers on behalf of a cancer patient in the case of Allan Shelton v Monsanto.

Shelton has non-Hodgkin lymphoma and is one of the 100,000-plus people in the US claiming in lawsuits that exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer and its other brands containing the chemical glyphosate caused their cancer.

According to investigative journalist Carey Gillam, Shelton’s lawyers have argued that Grant was an active participant and decision maker in the company’s Roundup business and should be made to testify at the trial.

But Grant says in the court filings that the effort to put him on the stand in front of a jury is “wholly unnecessary and serves only to harass and burden” him.

His lawyers state that Grant does not have “any expertise in the studies and tests that have been done related to Roundup generally, including those related to Roundup safety”.

Gillam notes that the court filings state that Grant’s testimony “would be of little value” because he is not a toxicologist, an epidemiologist, or a regulatory expert and “did not work in the areas of toxicology or epidemiology while employed by Monsanto”.

Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018 and Grant received an estimated $77 million post-sale payoff. Bloomberg reported in 2017 that Monsanto had increased Grant’s salary to $19.5 million for that fiscal year.

Even by 2009, Roundup-related products, which include genetically modified seeds developed to withstand glyphosate-based applications, represented about half of Monsanto’s gross margin. It is reasonable to say that Roundup was integral to Monsanto’s business model and Grant’s enormous income and final payoff.

But the cancer lawsuits in the US are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the damage done by glyphosate-based products and many other biocides.

Silent killer    

June 2022 marks 60 years since the publication of Rachel Carson’s iconic book Silent Spring. It was published just two years before her death at age 56.

Carson documented the adverse impacts on the environment of the indiscriminate use of pesticides, which she said were ‘biocides’, killing much more than the pests that were targeted. Silent Spring also described some of the deleterious effects of these chemicals on human health.

She accused the agrochemical industry of spreading disinformation and public officials of accepting the industry’s marketing claims without question. An accusation that is still very much relevant today.

Silent Spring was a landmark book, inspiring many scientists and campaigners over the years to carry on the work of Carson, flagging up the effects of agrochemicals and the role of the industry in distorting the narrative surrounding its proprietary chemicals and its influence on policy making.

In 2012, the American Chemical Society designated Silent Spring a National Historic Chemical Landmark because of its importance for the modern environmental movement.

For her efforts, Carson had to endure vicious, baseless smears and attacks on her personal life, integrity, scientific credentials and political affiliations. Tactics that the agrochemicals sector and its supporters have used ever since to try to shut down prominent scientists and campaigners who challenge industry claims, practices and products.

Although Carson was not calling for a ban on all pesticides, at the time Monsanto hit back by publishing 5,000 copies of ‘The Desolate Year’ which projected a world of famine and disease if pesticides were to be banned.

A message the sector continues to churn out even as evidence stacks up against the deleterious impacts of its practices and products and the increasing body of research which indicates the world could feed itself by shifting to agroecological/organic practices (see the online article Living in Epoch-Defining Times: Food, Agriculture and the New World Order, January 2022).

The title of Carson’s book was a metaphor, warning of a bleak future for the natural environment. So all these years later, what has become of humanity’s ‘silent spring’?

In 2017, research conducted in Germany showed the abundance of flying insects had plunged by three-quarters over the past 25 years. The research data was gathered in nature reserves across Germany and has implications for all landscapes dominated by agriculture as it seems likely that the widespread use of pesticides is an important factor.

Prof Dave Goulson of Sussex University in the UK was part of the team behind the study and said that vast tracts of land are becoming inhospitable to most forms of life: if we lose the insects then everything is going to collapse.

Flying insects are vital because they pollinate flowers and many, not least bees, are important for pollinating key food crops. Most fruit crops are insect-pollinated and insects also provide food for lots of animals, including birds, bats, some mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians.

Flies, beetles and wasps are also predators and important decomposers, breaking down dead plants and animals. And insects form the base of thousands of food chains; their disappearance is a principal reason Britain’s farmland birds have more than halved in number since 1970.

Is this one aspect of the silence Carson warned of – that joyous season of renewal and awakening void of birdsong (and much else)? Truly a silent spring.

The 2016 State of Nature Report found that one in 10 UK wildlife species is threatened with extinction, with numbers of certain creatures having plummeted by two thirds since 1970. The study showed the abundance of flying insects had plunged by three-quarters over a 25-year period.

Campaigner Dr Rosemary Mason has written to public officials on numerous occasions noting that agrochemicals, especially Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup, have devastated the natural environment and have also led to spiralling rates of illness and disease.

She indicates how the widespread use on agricultural crops of neonicotinoid insecticides and the herbicide glyphosate, both of which cause immune suppression, make species vulnerable to emerging infectious pathogens, driving large-scale wildlife extinctions, including essential pollinators.

Providing evidence to show how human disease patterns correlate remarkably well with the rate of glyphosate usage on corn, soy and wheat crops, which has increased due to ‘Roundup Ready’ seeds, Mason argues that over-reliance on chemicals in agriculture is causing irreparable harm to all beings on the planet.

In 2015, writer Carol Van Strum said the US Environmental Protection Agency has been routinely lying about the safety of pesticides since it took over pesticide registrations in 1970.

She has described how faked data and fraudulent tests led to many highly toxic agrochemicals reaching the market and they still remain in use, regardless of the devastating impacts on wildlife and human health.

The research from Germany mentioned above followed a warning by a chief scientific adviser to the UK government, Prof Ian Boyd, who claimed that regulators around the world have falsely assumed that it is safe to use pesticides at industrial scales across landscapes and the “effects of dosing whole landscapes with chemicals have been largely ignored.”

Prior to that particular warning, there was a report delivered to the UN Human Rights Council saying that pesticides have catastrophic impacts on the environment, human health and society as a whole.

Authored by Hilal Elver, the then special rapporteur on the right to food, and Baskut Tuncak, who was at the time special rapporteur on toxics, the report states:

“Chronic exposure to pesticides has been linked to cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, hormone disruption, developmental disorders and sterility.”

Elver says that the power of the corporations over governments and the scientific community is extremely important: if you want to deal with pesticides, you have to deal with the companies which deny the damage inflicted by their chemicals as they continue to aggressively market their products

While these corporations falsely claim their products are essential for feeding a burgeoning global population, they also mouth platitudes about choice and democracy, while curtailing both as they infiltrate and subvert regulatory agencies and government machinery.

Whether it is the well-documented harm to the environment or tales of illness and disease in Latin America and elsewhere, the devastating impacts of chemical-intensive agriculture which the agribusiness-agritech corporations rollout is clear to see.

Corporate criminals   

Post-1945 the nutritional value of what we eat has been depleted due to reliance on a narrower range of crops, the side-lining of traditional seeds which produced nutrient-dense plants and modern ‘cost-effective’ food-processing methods that strip out vital micronutrients and insert a cocktail of chemical additives.

Fuelling these trends has been a network of interests, including the Rockefeller Foundation and its acolytes in the US government, giant agribusiness conglomerates like Cargill, the financial-industrial complex and its globalisation agenda (which effectively further undermined localised, indigenous food systems) and the giant food corporations and the influential groups they fund, such as the International Life Sciences Institute.

Included here in this network is the agrochemical-agritech sector which promotes its proprietary chemicals and (genetically-engineered) seeds through a well-developed complex of scientists, politicians, journalists, lobbyists, PR companies and front groups.

Consider what Carey Gillam says:

“US Roundup litigation began in 2015 after the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen. Internal Monsanto documents dating back decades show that the company was aware of scientific research linking its weed killer to cancer but instead of warning consumers, the company worked to suppress the information and manipulate scientific literature.”

Over the years, Monsanto mounted a deceitful defence of its health- and environment-damaging Roundup and its genetically engineered crops and orchestrated toxic smear campaigns against anyone – scientist or campaigner – who threatened its interests.

In 2016, Rosemary Mason wrote an open letter to European Chemicals Agency Executive Director Geert Dancet: Open Letter to the ECHA about Scientific Fraud and Ecocide. More of an in-depth report than a letter, it can be accessed on the academia.edu site.

In it, she explained how current EU legislation was originally set up to protect the pesticides industry and Monsanto and other agrochemical corporations helped the EU design the regulatory systems for their own products.

She also drew Dancet’s attention to the journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology and how, in 2016 Volume 46, Monsanto commissioned five reviews published in a supplement to the journal.  Monsanto also funded them. Mason argues the aim was to cast serious doubts about the adverse effects of glyphosate by using junk science. Straight out of the Big Tobacco playbook.

Mason told Dancet:

“CEO Hugh Grant and the US EPA knew that glyphosate caused all of these problems. The corporation concealed the carcinogenic effects of PCBs on humans and animals for seven years. They have no plans to protect you and your families from the tsunami of sickness that is affecting us all in the UK and the US.”

Meanwhile, on the US Right to Know site, the article Roundup Cancer Cases – Key Documents and Analysis sets out just why more than 100,000 cancer sufferers are attempting to hold Monsanto to account in US courts.

In a just (and sane) world, CEOs would be held personally responsible for the products they peddle and earn millions from. But no doubt they would do their utmost to dodge culpability.

After all, they were ‘just doing their job’ – and they would not want to feel harassed or burdened, would they?

*

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Renowned author Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) in Montreal.

The author receives no payment from any media outlet or organisation for his writing and relies on the generosity of readers. If you appreciated this article, please consider sending a few coins his way: [email protected]

Featured image is from Shutterstock

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Read Colin Todhunter’s e-Book entitled

Food, Dispossession and Dependency. Resisting the New World Order

We are currently seeing an acceleration of the corporate consolidation of the entire global agri-food chain. The high-tech/big data conglomerates, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, have joined traditional agribusiness giants, such as Corteva, Bayer, Cargill and Syngenta, in a quest to impose their model of food and agriculture on the world.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is also involved (documented in ‘Gates to a Global Empire‘ by Navdanya International), whether through buying up huge tracts of farmland, promoting a much-heralded (but failed) ‘green revolution’ for Africa, pushing biosynthetic food and genetic engineering technologies or more generally facilitating the aims of the mega agri-food corporations.

Click here to read.

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***

Meine Frage ist ernst gemeint. Die Worte Tolstois in seiner Rede gegen den Krieg (1) haben mich sehr angesprochen und dazu verleitet, ebenfalls die Wahrheit zu sagen, wie ich sie verstehe – auch im Sinne der christlichen Osterbotschaft: Es sind nicht alleine die anderen, die Kriegsführer, die Politiker, die Pfarrer, die die Waffen des Krieges segnen, die die anderen jenseits der Grenze erschlagen, die auch Christen sind und Menschen wie wir und es sind auch nicht alleine die jungen Burschen, die marschieren, wenn sie gerufen werden, die den Krieg führen.

Was machen wir anderen Menschen, die den Krieg nicht anzetteln beziehungsweise herbeiführen und die nicht irgendwann den Roten Atomknopf drücken, um einen Teil der Menschheit auszulöschen und die Erde zu verwüsten? Sind wir nicht auch schuldig? Die Welt ist doch so, wie wir sie eingerichtet oder – in Bezug auf bereits bestehende Verhältnisse – geduldet haben. Können wir anderen uns denn der Verantwortung entziehen? Sind wir mitschuldig, selbst dann, wenn wir Opfer sind?

Die Wissenschaft ist auf dem Kriegspfad, da sie nicht dem Schutz, sondern der Vernichtung des Lebens dient: Immer mehr Wissenschaftler verhökern ihr Wissen, ihr Können – und oft auch ihre Seele – dem militärisch-industriellen Komplex. Sie entfernen sich sogar so weit von ihrem Menschsein, dass sie die Mittel für die allgemeine Vernichtung der Menschheit zu vervollkommnen helfen. Die Dezimierung der Weltbevölkerung ist die Folge – oder sogar das Ziel. Die tödliche „Impfung“ eines Großteils der Weltbevölkerung gegen COVID-19 oder die militärbiologischen Aktivitäten verantwortungsloser Staaten in der Ukraine (2) sowie die Bedrohung durch ein nukleares Armageddon sind nur einige Beispiele aus jüngster Zeit.

Wir Bürger werden darüber im Unklaren gelassen oder belogen, indem die militärischen Forschungsprojekte geheim gehalten oder humanitär bemäntelt werden. Unfehlbarkeit und Allgemeinverbindlichkeit von Wissenschaftlern und ihren Erkenntnissen müssen deshalb zurückgewiesen werden. Wenn die Not der Menschheit nicht an ihr Herz rührt, wird all ihre Weisheit und Wissenschaft degradiert zu einem selbstgefälligen Spiel des Verstandes, das keine Verbindlichkeit kennt.

Und wir anderen Menschen? Wir verlieren viele hehre Worte, lassen aber keine Taten folgen. Wir haben in unserer Gesellschaftsordnung, die Herrschende und Beherrschte kennt, eine Mentalität, eine Ideologie des Knechts entwickelt. Denn auch der Knecht bedarf wie der Herrscher „von Gottes Gnaden“ einer Ideologie, um in der Knechtschaft zu verharren. Er soll sich mit seinem Schicksal abfinden und die Leiden dieser Welt nicht allzu ernst nehmen. Die Religion tröstet ihn über das Unrecht hinweg, indem sie ihm verheißt, dass er im Jenseits für alle Mühsal und erlittenes Unrecht Vergeltung findet.

Deshalb ist auch der Knecht immer Opfer und Mitschuldiger der Tyrannei. Sein Traum ist nicht, „Herren“ und „Knechte“ aus der Welt zu schaffen, sondern er wünscht, selber Herr zu werden. Die Gewalt hat ihn vergiftet und er besitzt nicht mehr die Kraft, den Traum der allgemeinen Freiheit zu träumen.

Da das Geschenk der Evolution im sittlichen Bewusstsein jedes Einzelnen besteht, in der Einsicht in die Verantwortung aller gegenüber allen durch die gegenseitige Hilfe, deshalb müssen wir zusammenhalten und uns einander die Hände reichen, um so dem Macht- und Herrschaftsstreben kranker Individuen entschieden Einhalt zu gebieten.

Ich hoffe sehr, wir haben uns verstanden. Der Bestand des Menschengeschlechts wird davon abhängen, ob wir uns in weit höherem Maße als bisher zur allmenschlichen Solidarität bekennen.

*

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Lehrer (Rektor a. D.), Doktor der Pädagogik (Dr. paed.) und Diplom-Psychologe (Schwerpunkte: Klinische-, Pädagogische- und Medien-Psychologie). Als Pensionär arbeitete er viele Jahre als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. In seinen Büchern und pädagogisch-psychologischen Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung und eine Erziehung zum Gemeinsinn und Frieden.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Noten 

[1] https://www.globalresearch.ca/leo-n-tolstoy-speech-against-war-call-people-you-shall-not-kill/5777398

[2] https://de.rt.com/international/136334-sacharowa-berlin-lenkt-mit-biowaffen/

Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation

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“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute  

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

My question is a serious one. Tolstoy’s words in his speech against war (1) spoke to me very much and prompted me to also speak the truth as I understand it – also in the sense of the Christian Easter message: it is not only the others, the war leaders, the politicians, the priests who bless the weapons of war, who slay the others on the other side of the border, who are also Christians and human beings like us, and it is also not only the young boys who march when they are called, who wage war.

What do we other human beings do who do not instigate or bring about war and who do not at some point press the red nuclear button to wipe out part of humanity and devastate the earth? Are we not also guilty? After all, the world is the way we have set it up or – in relation to already existing conditions – tolerated it. Can the rest of us escape responsibility? Are we complicit, even if we are victims?

Science is on the warpath because it does not serve for the protection but for the destruction of life: more and more scientists are hawking their knowledge, their skills – and often their souls – to the military-industrial complex. They are even moving so far away from their humanity that they are helping to perfect the means for the general destruction of humanity. The decimation of the world’s population is the result – or even the goal. The lethal “vaccination” of a large part of the world’s population against COVID-19 or the military-biological activities of irresponsible states in Ukraine (2) and the threat of a nuclear Armageddon are just a few recent examples.

We citizens are kept in the dark about this or lied to, in that the military research projects are kept secret or glossed over in humanitarian terms. Infallibility and generality of scientists and their findings must therefore be rejected. If the needs of humanity do not touch their hearts, all their wisdom and science will be degraded to a complacent game of wits that knows no binding force.

And the other human beings? We speak many noble words, but do not follow them up with action. In our social order, which knows rulers and ruled, we have developed a mentality, an ideology of the servant. For the servant, like the ruler “by the grace of God”, also needs an ideology to remain in servitude. He should resign himself to his fate and not take the sufferings of this world too seriously. Religion consoles him over the injustice by promising him that he will find retribution in the hereafter for all the hardship and injustice he has suffered.

Therefore, the servant is also always a victim and accomplice of tyranny. His dream is not to eliminate “masters” and “servants” from the world, but he wishes to become master himself. Violence has poisoned him and he no longer has the strength to dream the dream of universal freedom.

Since the gift of evolution consists in the moral consciousness of each individual, in the insight into the responsibility of all towards all through mutual help, that is why we must stick together and join hands with each other, in order to put a firm stop to the striving for power and domination of sick individuals.

I very much hope we have understood each other. The existence of the human race will depend on whether we profess all-human solidarity to a far greater extent than we have done so far.

*

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a teacher (retired headmaster), doctor of education (Dr. paed.) and graduate psychologist (specialising in clinical, educational and media psychology). As a retiree, he worked for many years as a psychotherapist in his own practice. In his books and educational-psychological articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral education in values and an education for public spirit and peace.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

(1) https://www.globalresearch.ca/leo-n-tolstoy-speech-against-war-call-people-you-shall-not-kill/5777398

(2) https://de.rt.com/international/136334-sacharowa-berlin-lenkt-mit-biowaffen/

Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation

---

“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute  

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Among the Second World War’s real tragedies, and which has often been overlooked in Western historiography, is the damage inflicted by the German armed forces on the Soviet Union and its people, the worst of it in 1941 and 1942.

Nazi Germany ultimately lost the war but, such was the force of blows the Germans had landed on the Soviet Union, that their invasion would be a principal factor behind the communist state’s eventual collapse in 1991.

Geoffrey Roberts, an Irish-based historian of Soviet history, wrote that the German-Axis assault “was no ordinary military conflict. Rather it was an ideological and racist war, a war of destruction and extermination that aimed to kill Jews, enslave the Slavic peoples and destroy communism. This resulted in the death of 25 million Soviet citizens, including a million Jews as the first victims of the Holocaust”.

Around 70,000 Soviet cities, towns and villages were destroyed in the Nazi-led invasion. Also wiped out by the invaders were 98,000 Soviet collective farms, tens of thousands of factories, and thousands of miles of roads and rail lines. Partly as a result of this destruction and the effort expended to overcome it, Soviet Russia would not fully recover and became “a long-term casualty of the Great Patriotic War” with the USSR’s demise in 1991, according to military scholar Chris Bellamy. (Bellamy, Absolute War, p. 6)

A substantial proportion of the Nazi-Soviet War was not fought out on Russian soil. Extensive fighting occurred across Soviet republics such as the Ukraine, Europe’s biggest country today outside of Russia. Of all the states that the Third Reich conquered in World War II, the Ukraine proved by far the most difficult for the Wehrmacht to capture.

After German Army Group South had breached into western Ukraine in late June 1941, the capital Kiev, 300 miles further east, would not be taken and subdued until 3 months later, on 26 September 1941. Even then Kiev was only captured by the Germans, after Adolf Hitler on 21 August had ordered significant additional forces southward, to bolster German divisions in the Ukraine. Three battles alone were fought for the eastern Ukrainian metropolis of Kharkov, the USSR’s 4th largest city, between the autumn of 1941 and the spring of 1943. All three battles were won by the Germans; the devastation was immense and Kharkov was virtually destroyed.

The shell of Kharkov was liberated by the Red Army on 23 August 1943, in spite of Hitler repeatedly demanding that the city be held “under all circumstances”. The outnumbered Germans were compelled to leave Kharkov on 22 August, so as to prevent “another Stalingrad”, Wehrmacht generals assessed on the ground; but not before the Germans had blown up a few more buildings in the city as they departed.

Hitler was determined to retake Kharkov, however. In late August 1943, he quickly prepared a counterattack in the hope of re-establishing German supremacy over the city. To be closer to the front, on 27 August 1943 Hitler arrived at his Vinnitsa Werwolf compound, located deep in a pine forest not far from central Ukraine. It was the first time Hitler had visited the Werwolf complex in more than 5 months.

As summer turned to autumn in 1943 and the evenings were closing in, Hitler’s effort to recapture Kharkov failed when the German assault was repulsed by the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army, but the fighting was again vicious. Hitler remained at the Werwolf headquarters for nearly 3 weeks, until 15 September 1943, when he left it for the final occasion.

Of the approximately 25 million Soviet citizens who would die in the conflict, up to 10 million of those who perished were of Ukrainian birth, soldiers and civilians (Bellamy, p. 11). In 1977 Stephan G. Prociuk, a Ukrainian-born analyst, calculated the Ukraine’s death toll during the war at 11 million, but the number should be treated with caution. In 1986, when the Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences estimated that its population had been reduced by 13.6 million during the war; but the figure seems much too excessive.

The unprecedented level of destruction, which the Soviet Union suffered during the war, need not have been so severe; that is had the country been led by a reasoned and level-headed figure. Brazilian political scientist Moniz Bandeira wrote of “the degeneration of the revolution of 1917 under the totalitarian regime of Joseph Stalin” (Bandeira, the World Disorder, p. 82). Stalin had by 1941 been in supreme control of the Soviet Union for over a decade.

Stalin’s predecessor as Soviet leader, Vladimir Lenin, was an astute, perceptive politician. Lenin wrote not long before his death in January 1924, “Stalin is excessively brutal, and this fault, which can be tolerated in private and among communists, becomes an intolerable defect in the person who occupies the position of secretary general” (Trepper, The Great Game, p. 43). Stalin’s brutality was on show from 1936 to 1938, when his regime liquidated hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens during the Great Purge.

More seriously through the viewpoint of the approaching war, from May 1937 Stalin began to purge the Red Army’s high command too. With no concrete evidence, he suspected or believed that a coup was being prepared against him, which was mistaken, as Marshal Georgy Zhukov stated. The timing of the Red Army purges could scarcely have been worse, and they continued right up to the start of hostilities with Germany on 22 June 1941.

Soviet career agent and resistance fighter Leopold Trepper wrote, “The blood of Red Army soldiers flowed: 13 out of 19 commanders of army corps, 110 out of 135 commanders of divisions and brigades, half the commanders of regiments, and most of the political commissars were executed”. (Trepper, p. 67)

Altogether, out of 142,000 Soviet military commanders and commissars employed in 1937, about 20,000 of them were permanently dismissed from the Red Army. Out of these 20,000 the vast majority of them would be killed (Mawdsley, Thunder in the East, pp. 20-21). Stalin intended that the purges especially target the Soviet military’s top ranks. This had a devastating impact on the ability, quality, and training of the Red Army, and the effects would last for years.

Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, the Red Army’s pre-war commander, lamented in early October 1941 that “our organisation is weaker than theirs. Our commanding officers are less well trained. The Germans succeed usually because of their better organisation and clever tricks”.

The Red Army would not completely recover from the purges until 1944, with the launching of its great offensive that summer, Operation Bagration. After the war, Marshal Zhukov said of the Soviet military personnel eliminated in the purges, “Of course, I regard them as innocent victims”. (Gromyko, Memories, p. 216)

Another calamity lay in store. Stalin gave no credence to the intelligence reports, piling up on his desk from late 1940, which outlined that Hitler was preparing an attack on the USSR in 1941. Stalin personally received 80 intelligence accounts, from November 1940 to June 1941, warning him of Nazi intentions. (Roberts, the Storm of War, p. 155)

These reports sent to the Kremlin came from a variety of sources: British, Chinese, American, Czech intelligence, etc. As early as 29 December 1940, Soviet intelligence agencies possessed the basic outline of Operation Barbarossa, its scope and intended execution time (Salisbury, The 900 Days, p. 58). Lenin, had he still been in charge, would have drawn the obvious conclusion. The most reliable intelligence material of all was forthcoming from first-rate communist agents like Trepper, Richard Sorge, Anatoly Gurevich and Rudolf Roessler. They all informed Stalin that the German invasion was coming.

The decorated Russian admiral Nikolai Kuznetsov, a Hero of the Soviet Union, said of Stalin’s associates in the Kremlin, “they could not take in their hands the levers of direction. They were not accustomed to independent action, and were able only to fulfill the will of Stalin standing over them. This was the tragedy of those hours”. Admiral Kuznetsov described Stalin’s refusal to believe the intelligence reports as “sick suspiciousness”. (Salisbury, p. 78)

The German attack began at 3:15 am on 22 June; just over an hour before this, as part of Stalin’s continued commitment to the Nazi-Soviet Pact, a Russian train laden with commodities entered the Third Reich, at 2 am on 22 June, through the central portion of the front at Brest-Litovsk (Bellamy, p. 164). The Russian locomotive steamed past thousands of onlooking German soldiers, who were about to advance into the Soviet Union; the Germans were much amused at the sight of the train dispatching raw materials to the country about to attack it.

When the German-Axis divisions swarmed over the Soviet frontiers, many Russian troops were either on leave, separated from their artillery, or taken prisoner before they could institute an effective defence. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers were unnecessarily lost, in the opening days and weeks, across the front, along with thousands of tanks and airplanes which could have been saved.

By the first week of July 1941, almost 4,000 Soviet planes had been lost, most of them destroyed on the ground or fallen undamaged into enemy hands. German aircraft losses up to the first week of July amounted to 550 (Mawdsley, p. 59). On the Ukrainian sector of the frontier alone, by 6 July 1941 the Soviet divisions had suffered 173,323 killed, captured or missing. Also by 6 July along the Ukrainian border, the Germans had destroyed 4,381 Soviet tanks and 1,218 combat aircraft. (Bellamy, p. 205)

Two and a half weeks into the German invasion, by 9 July 1941 the Wehrmacht had inflicted on the Red Army a total of 589,537 irrecoverable losses (Bellamy, p. 206), which translates to deaths, those taken prisoner by the Nazis, and others permanently missing. Casualties, on the other hand, does not always mean irrecoverable losses.

In the first weeks of Hitler’s attack, the Red Army was losing on average each day more than 44,000 soldiers. Trepper wrote, “By this time, the armoured divisions of the Wehrmacht had already penetrated several hundred kilometres into Soviet territory. It would take the sacrifices of a whole nation, rising up against its invader, to reverse the military situation”.

On 13 July 1941, with the invasion 3 weeks old, the Germans had suffered by then 92,120 killed, wounded or missing and these were not all irrecoverable losses. Bellamy wrote that by 9 July 1941, “An attacking force [Wehrmacht], with only a modest superiority in numbers of men, and inferior in numbers of tanks, guns and aircraft, had been able to drive the defending Russians back between 300 and 600 kilometres”. By the end of July 1941, now almost 6 weeks into the invasion, the Germans had suffered 25,000 deaths on the Eastern front. (Bellamy, p. 206)

To properly understand the Nazi-Soviet War, it can be highlighted that in military circles it is conventionally believed, for an invasion to succeed decisively, that the attacking forces should outnumber the defenders by 3 to 1. On 22 June 1941 the German-Axis armies assailed the USSR with 3,767,000 men, which were immediately in opposition to 3,000,000 Soviet troops (Mawdsley, p. 19). Yet in the whole of the USSR, there were 5,373,000 Red Army soldiers in June 1941. Most of the remaining 2.37 million Soviet troops were swiftly relocated westwards.

At the war’s outset, the Soviets had almost 3 times as many tanks in the western USSR than the German-Axis divisions, 11,000 versus 4,000. In the entire Soviet Union the Russians had 23,100 tanks in June 1941, almost 6 times greater than the enemy. The Kremlin had 9,100 aircraft in the western USSR as opposed to 4,400 German-Axis aircraft; but in all of the Soviet Union the Russians had 20,000 planes, nearly 5 times as much as the enemy. (Mawdsley, p. 42)

Reflecting on the above figures, the Soviets should have held the advantage from early on. It places in sharp perspective how the war actually unfolded, with the Germans reaching the outskirts of Moscow at the start of December 1941. Military historian Donald J. Goodspeed noted “the Russians should have been able to put up a much stronger initial defense than they did. They were, in fact, taken by surprise and for this there was no excuse at all. Stalin had been given repeated, detailed warnings of Hitler’s intention; he was even told the correct date of Barbarossa”. (Goodspeed, The German Wars, p. 391)

The Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, later recalled accurately, “The growth of our military industry in the years before the war could not possibly have been greater!” Stalin must be given credit in this regard, for the Soviet armament drive was his inspiration from the early 1930s.

It is a shame therefore, from the beginning of the war against fascism, that Stalin could not have put to full use the remarkable gains Russia had made in the military realm. By the end of 1941, the Soviets had lost 20,000 tanks (Mawdsley, p. 46) and 17,900 aircraft (Mawdsley, p. 59). The Germans for example would lose 2,510 aircraft in the USSR in 1941, not insignificant by itself, for that figure was almost double what the Luftwaffe had lost in the 1940 Battle of Britain.

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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Sources

Chris Bellamy, Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War (Pan; Main Market edition, 21 Aug. 2009)

Geoffrey Roberts, “Russia’s military have learned lessons from failures to become a proven power”, The Irish Examiner, 11 June 2016

Leopold Trepper, The Great Game: Memoirs of a Master Spy (Michael Joseph Ltd; First Edition, 1 May 1977)

Andrei Gromyko, Memories: From Stalin to Gorbachev (Arrow Books Limited, 1 Jan. 1989)

Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941-1945 (Hodder Arnold, 23 Feb. 2007)

Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, The World Disorder: US Hegemony, Proxy Wars, Terrorism and Humanitarian Catastrophes (Springer; 1st ed. 2019 edition, 4 Feb. 2019)

Donald J. Goodspeed, The German Wars (Random House Value Publishing, 2nd edition, 3 Apr. 1985)

Harrison E. Salisbury, The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad (Da Capo Press, 30 Sep. 1985)

Robert M. Citino, “Kharkov 1943: The Wehrmacht’s Last Victory”, 8 May 2013, Historynet.com

Andrew Roberts, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War (Harper, 17 May 2011)

More Than 1 Million COVID Vaccine Injuries, Nearly 27,000 Deaths Reported to VAERS, CDC Data Show

By Megan Redshaw, April 18, 2022

VAERS data released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention included a total of 1,226,314 reports of adverse events from all age groups following COVID vaccines, including 26,976 deaths and 219,865 serious injuries between Dec. 14, 2020, and April 8, 2022.

Japan’s Nuclear Regulator to Okay Release of Treated Water from Fukushima Plant

By NHK World, April 18, 2022

The Japanese government plans to dilute treated water that continues to accumulate at the plant to levels below national regulations and start releasing it from around spring 2023.

Ukraine: The Moment of Truth

By Prof. Ivaylo Grouev, April 17, 2022

The war in Ukraine will shape the global order of the 21^st century. Even for those without a basic understanding of geopolitics, the war is in Ukraine, but not between Russia and Ukraine. The war, or military operation, as the Kremlin framed it, is between Russia and the so-called “Collective West”.

Is the US Dispatching ISIS Forces From Syria to Ukraine?

By Al Mayadeen, April 17, 2022

In the wake of reactionary forces (including a neo-Nazi battalion and possible Israeli mercenaries) fighting Russia in Ukraine, Syrian deputy foreign minister, Bashar Al-Jaafari, told Sputnik that there may be a possibility that US special services could be sending ISIS members and Jabhat Al-Nusra (Al-Nusra Front) soldiers to Ukraine.

Whose Security? Sweden, Finland, NATO’s Expansion Towards Russia

By Kim Petersen, April 17, 2022

Two neutral countries, Finland and Sweden, are seriously contemplating NATO membership, as did Ukraine. Will this increase security for these two countries? There has been no warring between Russia and Finland since 1941-1944 when the Finns decided to ally with Nazi Germany during World War II and fight the Soviet Union.

A Scarred Childhood: Israeli Attacks Against Palestinian Children in the Occupied West Bank in 2022

By Palestinian Negotiatons Affairs Department, April 17, 2022

For over five decades, Palestinian children and their families have experienced the injustices of the Israeli occupation. To our children, this occupation has served as a school of daily experiential learning.

Video: The Vaccine is More Dangerous than COVID-19: Dr. Peter McCullough

By Dr. Peter McCullough and Michael Welch, April 17, 2022

They produce a lethal spike protein in insensitive organs like the brain or the heart or elsewhere. The spike protein damages blood vessels, damages organs, causes blood clots. So it’s well within the mechanism of action that the vaccine could be fatal. Someone could have a fatal blood clot.

NATO-Exit under Art. 13: Dismantle NATO, Close Down 800 US Military Bases, Prosecute the War Criminals

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 17, 2022

There is a (somewhat contradictory) clause within the Treaty of the Atlantic Alliance (Article 13) which enables withdrawal from NATO. This clause has to be examined and a strategy must be envisaged. The request of a NATO Member State to withdraw from the Treaty rests with the Government of the United States of America. What are the legal implications of this clause?

How the West Was Won: Counterinsurgency. “When Domestic Populations Become the Battlefield”

By Dustin Broadbery, April 16, 2022

Thanks to Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013, we now know that the NSA were collecting 200 billion pieces of data every month, including the cell phone records, emails, web searches and live chats of more than 200 million ordinary Americans. This was extracted from the world’s largest internet companies via a lesser-known, data mining program called Prism.

Western Dissent from US/NATO Policy on Ukraine Is Small, Yet the Censorship Campaign Is Extreme

By Glenn Greenwald, April 15, 2022

On a virtually daily basis, any off-key news agency, independent platform or individual citizen is liable to be banished from the internet. In early March, barely a week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the twenty-seven nation European Union — citing “disinformation” and “public order and security” — officially banned the Russian state-news outlets RT and Sputnik from being heard anywhere in Europe.

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Japan’s nuclear regulator has largely approved a plan to release treated water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the ocean.

The plant suffered triple meltdowns in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster. Water is used to cool molten nuclear fuel. It mixes with rain and groundwater that flows into damaged reactor buildings.

The water is treated to remove most of the radioactive materials, but still contains radioactive tritium.

The Japanese government plans to dilute treated water that continues to accumulate at the plant to levels below national regulations and start releasing it from around spring 2023.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority has been inspecting the plan drawn up by plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company.

In 13 meetings since December, the NRA discussed the safety of the new facility to be built for the water release and the maximum concentration of radioactive tritium when it is released. It also considered how to respond in natural disasters and other emergencies, and the effect of radiation exposure on the surrounding environment and people.

At Friday’s meeting, an official of the NRA secretariat said there are no issues left that have not been discussed enough.

The NRA plans to put together a draft inspection document as early as next month that effectively indicates the plan’s approval.

TEPCO plans to start construction on a facility for diluting treated water and an undersea tunnel once the NRA approves the plan and the utility obtains consent from Fukushima Prefecture and local communities. TEPCO aims to complete the construction work by mid-April next year.

TEPCO has yet to convince and gain understanding from local fishers who are concerned about reputational damage from the release of treated water into the sea.

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Featured image is from The Millennium Report

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We have less than 24 hours to stop the World Health Organization’s proposed “global accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response,” a plan that would strip nations of the right to determine their own health policies in the event of a pandemic.

We only have until Wednesday at 11 a.m. ET to let the World Health Organization (WHO) know what we think about its proposed “global accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.”

Take action! Go to the World Council for Health website and use its platform to weigh in on the WHO’s global accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

Submissions must be in response to the provided guiding question: What substantive elements do you think should be included in a new international instrument on pandemic preparedness and response?

Plan would strip nations of the right to set their own health policy

In a special session, only the second-ever such session since the agency’s founding in 1948, the WHO’s Health Assembly met in December 2021 to adopt an agreement titled: “The World Together.”

The decision by the Health Assembly established an intergovernmental negotiating body to draft and negotiate the WHO Pandemic Preparedness Agreement.

Health Policy Watch reported the agreement will focus on “incoherent policymaking by member states and lack of international cooperation.”

What this means precisely is anyone’s guess, but it suggests a new global health governance that will strip nations of the right to determine their own health policy in the event of a pandemic.

However, the agreement doesn’t stop with pandemics.

The intergovernmental negotiating body also is instructed to address “the unsustainable food production and livestock breeding, wildlife trading, resource-intensive lifestyles and consumption, destruction of ecosystems, antimicrobial resistance and soaring figures of cancer” along with a range of other issues.

Such a binding agreement would stop countries like Sweden from preventing lockdowns and mandates within their borders as they did during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It could also prevent states such as Texas, Florida or Tennessee from defying federal and global mandates.

The underlying agenda envisions a world where WHO supersedes the authority of every signatory nation’s individual constitution.

The Biden administration announced it wants issues of “health equity” included in the Pandemic Preparedness Agreement, according to Politico.

Aside from the Politico report on Biden’s equality agenda, the media have reported very few details about the WHO’s sweeping treaty — which effectively is being negotiated in secret.

Buzzwords like “equity” can easily be used to conceal a hidden agenda to centralize global control of public health to benefit Big Pharma, major corporations and global financial capital.

You can help, but you must act today

Let the WHO know public health is not a one-size-fits-all program. We need people and communities in control of their own health.

Submit your comment today.

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Even without Ukraine being a NATO member-country, that land has already become America’s initial battlefield against Ukraine’s next-door-neighbor, Russia, thus effectively starting World War III against Russia? and, so, Ukraine is boosting the profits of U.S.-and-allied ‘defense’ contractors, such as Lockheed Martin Corporation, the world’s largest weapons-seller.

Though Ukraine is the land, and though Ukrainians are the U.S. regime’s proxy-soldiers in this initial stage of World War III, it is mainly American armaments-firms that are enormously benefitting from the resultant global surge in weapons-purchases.

It’s Ukrainians’ and Russians’ blood, and U.S.-and-allied billionaires’ profits, that are now being promoted in their U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media, as being the heroic war for ‘democracy’ and ’to defend freedom’, though, during the many decades before, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq, and in Syria, and in Libya, and in Yemen, and in so many other lands which have been cursed by America’s violent presence, the U.S. regime’s promised ‘championship of democracy and of the rules-based international order’, turned into the reality of U.S.-and-allied ‘rules’, and of rampant violations of international laws, as being the delivered U.S.-and-allied ’order’ there.

Russia and China are being demonized, by the U.S. regime, as ‘authoritarian states’, and as violators of human rights, while America’s billionaires, who control the U.S. regime and its ‘news’-media and its armaments-manufacturers, reap the rewards of this — the most massive of all global con-games against the entire global public.

Here are some recent developments, in America’s actual (though not yet formally announced) war against Russia:

On April 12th, Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post bannered “Pentagon looks to vastly expand weapons for Ukraine”, and reported that, “The Biden administration is poised to dramatically expand the scope of weapons it’s providing Ukraine.”

On April 13th, Russia’s RT News headlined “US issues Russia sanctions warning”, and reported that,

During an event at NATO’s Atlantic Council adjunct, [U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet] Yellen plans to insist that Washington remains fully committed to pushing Russia “further towards economic, financial, and strategic isolation,” according to an excerpt quoted by the media.

“And let’s be clear, the unified coalition of sanctioning countries will not be indifferent to actions that undermine the sanctions we’ve put in place,” Yellen will say.

In her opinion, the measures being imposed on Russia by the US and its allies are necessary because the future of the international order, “both for peaceful security and economic prosperity,” is now at stake.

Also on the 13th, the New York Times bannered “The U.S. has expanded intelligence sharing with Ukraine”, and reported that “The United States has increased the flow of intelligence to Ukraine about Russian forces in the Donbas and Crimea,” so as to increase the likelihood that Ukrainian forces will retake Crimea, which the Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian, had arbitrarily transferred to Ukraine in 1954, and which had been a part of Russia ever since 1783.

Because there was such intense opposition by the Crimean population to this transfer, the Ukrainian government was obliged to grant to Crimea a special status as being a self-administered region, not controlled by the Ukrainian government in Kiev. But, now, the U.S. regime demands instead that Crimea become an integral part of the Ukrainian regime, especially because Crimeans are passionately opposed to doing that, just as they had been back in 1954, when Khrushchev (a less barbaric dictator than today’s U.S. regime is) transferred it to Ukraine.

The U.S. is also opposed to the residents in the breakaway Donbass portion of that pre-U.S.-2014-coup Ukrainian region, where over 90% of the residents had voted for the democratically elected Ukrainian President whom U.S. President Barack Obama had overthrown in a bloody U.S. coup (‘democratic revolution’) in February 2014.

So, the U.S. Biden Administration, set upon bringing about World War III, is likewise assisting its Ukrainian stooge-regime to grab back that former region of Ukraine, against which that U.S.-stooge-regime had been trying to eliminate as many of the residents there as it could.

The idea behind America’s “intelligence-sharing” with their stooge-regime is to provide U.S. satellite and other secret intelligence information to America’s stooge-regime there, in order to assist them to conquer not only the residents in both Donbass and Crimea, but also to conquer the Russian military forces in Crimea, which region of the former Ukraine had voted over 95% in March 2014 to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia, and which region has had, ever since 1783, Russia’s largest naval base (which naval base Obama had been intending to become instead yet another U.S. naval base).

Also on the 13th of April, Defense News bannered “NATO planners put the F-35 front and center in European nuclear deterrence” and reported, regarding that Lockheed Martin fighter-plane:

Following Germany’s decision to buy a fleet of F-35s, NATO planners have begun updating the alliance’s nuclear sharing mechanics to account for the jet’s next-gen capabilities, a key NATO official said this week.

“We’re moving fast and furiously towards F-35 modernization and incorporating those into our planning and into our exercising and things like that as those capabilities come online,” said Jessica Cox, director of the NATO nuclear policy directorate in Brussels.

“By the end of the decade, most if not all of our allies will have transitioned,” she added, speaking during an online discussion of the Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance Deterrence Center, a Washington-based think tank. …

The United States military stores around 150 B-61 gravity bombs in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Turkey for that mission, according to a recent accounting in an article by the British-based Chatham House think tank. …

Most recently, the new German government picked the F-35 specifically for the nuclear sharing mission, committing to up to 35 copies. The decision followed a lengthy discussion in Germany about Berlin’s continued participation in the nuclear sharing responsibility in the first place, a debate that appears to have abated following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Cox said the aircraft’s advanced features also will boost the capabilities of alliance members and F-35 customers like Poland, Denmark or Norway who might be tasked with supporting actual nuclear sharing missions.

The U.S. Congress hasn’t yet declared war against Russia, but over 97% of the members in the U.S. Senate and House have voted for the sanctions, and the military appropriations bills, and the other anti-Russian legislation, to assist the U.S. regime to conquer Russia. So, pulling the plug to start the official war seems now to be almost a mere formality, so late in ‘the game’.

The U.S. regime’s intentions toward Russia have been conquest ever since U.S. President Harry S. Truman made that decision on 25 July 1945, and it stayed that way even after the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.

America’s anti-Russia alliance, NATO, has always been committed to conquering Russia, and remains so today. For example, NATO’s chief Jens Stoltenberg has always said, and repeated it recently, that “NATO is not a threat to Russia.”

How much contempt, against the public, must such a person, who says such a thing, in such circumstances, and with such a long history behind it — all of which has been to the exact contrary of that person’s statement — have?

However much it is, that’s how much contempt of the public he has. The blatancy of his lying is shocking. But it’s normal for NATO, which also makes this type of blatantly false allegation an intrinsic part of their commitment to being Russia’s enemies, such as their official statement on 26 February 2022:

“NATO has tried to build a partnership with Russia, developing dialogue and practical cooperation in areas of common interest. Practical cooperation has been suspended since 2014 in response to Russia’s illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea, Ukraine, which NATO will never recognise.”

(It wasn’t ‘illegal’; Obama’s coup in Ukraine was.) But that ‘partnership with Russia’ didn’t exist even when Boris Yeltsin was Russia’s President and, as the New York Times headlined on 21 December 1991, “Yeltsin Says Russia Seeks to Join NATO”, yet NATO never gave more than perfunctory consideration to his repeated proposal. And as U.S. President G.H.W. Bush secretly started informing U.S. allies on 24 February 1990, the Cold War was to continue on the U.S.-and-allied side until Russia itself becomes conquered, no matter how friendly toward them Russia might be or become.

Russia never invaded America and has never even threatened to do so except as being what they would do if America pushes them too far into a corner — comes at all close to trapping them (such as the present Biden regime is trying to do).

The aggressor has always, ever since 25 July 1945, been the U.S. regime, which has perpetrated most of the world’s coups, sanctions, and invasions, after WW II.

This has always been done by the U.S. regime in the name of advancing ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ and ‘human rights’.

It has always been done by the very same regime that today is the world’s biggest violator of each of those alleged values, and that is also the world’s #1 police state, having a higher percentage of its residents living in prisons than does any other nation on the entire planet.

Any nation which is allied to it shares its immense guilt and hypocrisy, and will, no doubt, likewise be targeted by Russian, and maybe also Chinese, missiles, when America and its NATO finally do unleash their World War III against their ‘enemies’ if the intended victims become totally cornered, trapped.

But this will surely be a loser’s game on both sides (victimizers, the U.S. and its vassal-nations or ‘allies’; versus victims, such as Russia, China, Iran, Syria, and Libya). However, for the weapons-profiteers and extraction corporations that (mainly) the U.S. aristocracy control, and that are making money hand-over-fist this way, it will be a ‘winning’ game, if nuclear debris can ever be called a “win,” by anyone who is sane (which billionaires, as individuals with insatiable demands for their own supremacy, strongly tend not to be).

Can anyone more evil and deceitful, and hypocritical, than the U.S. regime and its NATO be imagined? If so, then whom might such a person even possibly be?

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s next book (soon to be published) will be AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change. It’s about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

“The war in Ukraine is the most dangerous international conflict since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The West, and especially America, is principally responsible for the crisis which began in February 2014. It has now turned into a war that not only threatens to destroy Ukraine, but also has the potential to escalate into a nuclear war between Russia and NATO.” — Prof. John Mearsheimer

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The war in Ukraine will shape the global order of the 21^st century. Even for those without a basic understanding of geopolitics, the war is in Ukraine, but not between Russia and Ukraine. The war, or military operation, as the Kremlin framed it, is between Russia and the so-called “Collective West”. 

The end of this war will re-configure the post-1945 security architecture and most likely will end the experiment of globalisation (global village, global citizen) as we know it, an euphemism for movement of a) capital (one direction) and b) resources and labour (opposite direction). There will be a multipolarity with quasi continental axis of political power based on economic, trade, financial  and ultimately even security arrangements.

Welcome to the newly emerging regionalization aka autarky, a truly fascinating period to remember the famous Chinese proverb: “we are living in interesting times” which times, according to the ancient tradition is the absolute worst Chinese curse.

In many aspects (to use the Marxist lexicon of “superstructure”) we are living in a gravitational field of autarky, due to old cleavages resulting from Churchill’s famous “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946.

In this context, I would like to share a personal introduction to this article.

In the last 20 years since I started teaching I always asked on May 9 what was the most important event that happened on that day?

Answers varied: typhoon in Indonesia, hijacking plane in Sri Lanka, elections in South Korea. In the last two decades, the only time I received the right answer i.e. capitulation of Germany came from a student born in the same city as Mikhail Gorbachev, Stavropol.

The vast majority of my students most in their 3 and 4 years as Political Science majors had not heard about the Red Army (with a very few exceptions).

World War II was taught in the following way:

Hitler invaded Europe, then there was the D-Day (the Battle of Normandy, D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed in Normandy) followed shortly by V-Day (Victory Day).

The main narrative was that the American army destroyed the German Wehrmacht. My students, were surprised to learn that in fact the Red Army defeated Germany and that USSR lost 24,000,000 people, compared to 418 000 Americans, 45 000 Canadians.

This so-called “alternative view” was not about some marginal regional skirmish but the most devasting conflict human civilization had ever seen, which shaped the politics of the 20^th century.

Why I am referring to this?

It is abundantly clear that today, the war in Ukraine plays the role of  a catalyst increasing the interpretative cleavages, where the nexus of facts, documents, official statements and front-line reportages represent narratives where the only common and mutually agreed denominator is the geography – Ukraine.

The current media coverage no longer represents a new and deeply fragmented world. In Ukraine radically opposed “truths”, views, basic data  belong to what theoretical mathematicians and astrophysicists call parallel galaxies.

The old Machiavellian dilemma of political survival based on “duality of truth” public (plebs) versus inner circle of government (elite) is now achievable with an impenetrable layer of censorship matching the specification of concrete grade for nuclear bunkers.

How is this possible in the era of non-stop 24/7 cycle of competing communication/propaganda narratives?

The answer is obvious.

This is not a new phenomena. In a meticulously documented book, Jeffrey Herf depicts the mechanics and efficacy of the Third Reich propaganda machine where there is one very revealing factoid.

In the very last days of WWII, while Russian forces were approaching Berlin, Goebbel’s propaganda explained the non-stop cannonade with the following hard to believe justification – shooting of an epic war film, “Live goes on” so to settle German citizens from worrying about the relentless cannonade. Berliners believed that Germany was winning the war and when they saw with their own eyes the first Russian tanks, they believed that they were part of the film crew….

This happened more than 70 years ago using mass produced cheap radio… try to  compare to today’s state of the art mass media with its endless capacity producing fake news, which deep fake and visual effects could rightfully be envied by Hollywood.

To go back to todays military conflict in Ukraine.

As a long-term supporter of a non-killing society, I unequivocally condemn any act of aggression, including the war in Ukraine. It is, simply put, a tragedy. At the same time, legitimate questions remain unanswered. Did we really have an honest public discourse about the causes for the Russian military operation, aka war in Ukraine? Listening to what once used to be mass media or now represents the “Ministry of Truth” – this is a “Putin War”.

This explanation is quite simple. There is only one problem in the equation – Putin. Therefore, the moment we get rid of Putin there will be no war, ergo regime change in Moscow. However according to the latest polls after the beginning of the military operation in Ukraine, Putin’s popularity jumped to 83%, now with vast public support.

This is a Russian, not a Putin war.  How to explain this? The mainstream media knows the answer but prefers to be silent.

Furthermore, from the media coverage “conveniently” were omitted Russian (Putin’s?) proposals published on December 17 2021  which in my view, were the very last diplomatic demarch aiming to avoid this conflict.

Russian security concerns were not openly discussed.In a snapshot, they are

• no further expansion of NATO (Ukraine, Georgia),
• removal of missiles sites in Poland and Romania.

The response was a flat rejection by USA and NATO. (Europe did not count – for Moscow, EU is not an independent geopolitical player). These were quintessential proposals regarding European as well as world security. They were promptly rejected.  The explanation from US and NATO was simple: Russia can not have any legitimate security concerns.

Really…?

Imagine the following hypothetical scenario, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) with members: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan)  as a defense military organisation continues to expand not only in Central Asia but also in Latin America.

First  way of expansion are the old Russian satellites: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala. The next round is Brazil, Venezuela, Chile and Argentina. There are massive Russian military bases including Russian missile sites.  The door is finally open to Mexico and …Canada. In Canada there is a pro-Russian coup d’état. The regime in Ottawa becomes the most anti-American regime not only in the Western hemisphere but in the world, surpassing even Teheran’s anti-American fever. Russian military hardware is flooding in all Canadian provinces. In addition, along the 4,000 km US- Canada border, Russia installs 30 bio-lab (research centers) under the supervision of Russian bioweapon specialists.

Most importantly due to geographic proximity Russian missiles could now hit Washington DC and New York in under 5 minutes, which makes them, de facto defenceless…

Washington is desperate to de-escalate the standoff and launches a diplomatic demarch by proposing the removal of Russian missiles sites, and written guarantees for the neutrality status to its neighbours, namely Canada and Mexico. Moscow and CTSO flatly reject these proposals.

Then…

For those who believe this is a cheap Kremlin propaganda, I suggest revisit 1962  Cuban missile crisis.  Back then, both Kennedy and Khrushchev managed to avoid MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) because they realised that the best course of action was de-escalation.

Unfortunately, 2022 is not 1962.

Instead of de-escalation there are clear indications suggesting the opposite coming from Russia on one side and USA and NATO on the other. The explanation from Jens Stoltenberg (Secretary General of NATO) rejecting the Russian peace proposals is that NATO is purely defense organisation and as such does not represent security concerns even less existential ones to whomever.

For starters such an argument is a hard sell.…

Was in reality Serbia representing such “a clear and present danger” to the security of NATO countries forcing the military alliance to amass 1000 combat planes?

Or ask Libyans. Was Gadhafi about to invade Europe in 2011? Or …Iraq in 2003?

The official NATO explanation stated that it was not about self-defence, but a policy with the enigmatic title “humanitarian intervention”.

In this way the first “NATO War” coined by the BBC as “Moral Combat” – Kosovo was presented not as an act of aggression, but as an act of “humanitarian intervention” where the blue helmets (the traditional peacekeeping operations) were asked to intervene lethally. As we all know the legality of this military operation or war or humanitarian intervention against Serbia happened without the approval of a UN Security Council resolution. Therefore, it was a violation of Article 51 of the United Nations – i.e. an act of aggression.

So much about the defense argument…

To remind our readers the “excuse” presented by NATO was found in the language of the legal definition of HI (Humanitarian Intervention).  

“Humanitarian intervention is armed intervention in another country without that country’s consent to deal with or the threat of humanitarian disasters caused by serious and far-reaching violations of fundamental human rights.”

Therefore in 1999 NATO crossed the Rubicon obtaining carte blanche to intervene military anywhere, anytime on the planet, where according to Political Council in Brussels headquarters has decided that human rights might have been threatened.

To put the Ukraine conflict in this context.

It was already established that NATO forces can intervene any moment when there is a violation of human’s rights, just like in 1999 where there were 45 ethnic Albanians killed in the village of Racak in Kosovo which triggered humanitarian intervention and NATO planes bombed Serbia for 78 days consecutively.

Back to Ukraine. After 2014 coup (Maidan), the Kiev regime ordered the Ukrainian army to launch a military operation in the eastern republics of Lugansk and Donetsk using its full arsenal: air force, including tanks and heavy artillery. This resulted in 14,000 (Ukrainian) citizen casualties (not 45 as was the case in Kosovo)

14,000 dead most of them civilians including children is it a marginal element…?

To conclude with another “marginal element” in the chronology of Ukraine saga.

The NATO’s Bucharest summit in April 2008 pushed the alliance to announce that Ukraine and Georgia “membership in the Alliance is a question of when, not whether”…

This “red line” was interpreted as an existential threat for Russia and… USA decided to ignore it.

The results of the rejection of Moscow peace proposals were summarised by the. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko who used a biblical reference, “The moment of truth has come“.

We are living in this moment.

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Prof. Ivalyo Grouev is a prominent author and geopolitical analyst, teaches political science at the University of Ottawa. 

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***

Last week, CNN brought on former U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta for his fourth recent appearance to talk, once again, about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s deadly invasion of Ukraine.

“I think we need to understand that there is only one thing that Putin understands, and that’s force,” said Panetta on Newsroom.

The former CIA director added:

“I think the United States has to provide whatever weapons are necessary to the Ukrainians, so that they can hit back, and hit back now.”

At no time did Panetta nor CNN mention that he’s a senior counselor at Beacon Global Strategies, a defense industry consulting firm that has reportedly represented weapons manufacturer Raytheon. The firm doesn’t disclose its clients, but Raytheon and the defense industry generally stand to benefit from the conflict in Ukraine.

The episode is part of a broader pattern and practice: Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, cable news networks have routinely called on defense officials-turned-consultants to offer analysis and help the American public make sense of the crisis. Often, these analysts have used their TV time to call for greater U.S. involvement and bolder moves that could ratchet up tensions between two nuclear-armed superpowers.

The networks have consistently failed to disclose these analysts’ day jobs, describing them instead by only their former high-ranking military or government roles — leaving viewers in the dark about the analysts’ financial ties to defense contractors that stand to profit from increased or prolonged conflict.

During its Ukraine coverage, MSNBC even failed to include disclosures when the network invited on former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who serves on the board of directors at Lockheed Martin, the world’s biggest defense contractor.

When asked about this matter, Johnson told The Lever, “I have no comment.”

Corporate media’s lack of transparency about these consultants is deeply troubling, said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen.

“This type of revolving-door behavior should be prohibited for military officials to serve in a private capacity representing military contractors,” Holman told The Lever. “If not prohibited, it should be disclosed to everyone so when they’re going on television trying to affect Biden’s policy on whatever war they have in mind, they ought to be straightforward.”

The phenomenon is not new. In an analysis of three weeks of news coverage following last year’s U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) found that 20 of the 22 featured guests from the U.S. on the networks’ Sunday shows had ties to the military-industrial-complex. At that point, too, the TV networks regularly neglected to disclose their guests’ ties to the defense industry. But the stakes are now much higher: Military conflict between the U.S. and Russia could make for a world-ending disaster, which is why the Biden administration has been reluctant to take major actions that could be perceived as escalatory.

But the Ukraine crisis and the potential for greater conflict have been a goldmine for defense contractors, sending stocks skyrocketing and prompting sharp increases in defense spending.

“The people who have the most interest in influencing the direction of the coverage are weapons makers,” Jim Naureckas, editor at FAIR, told The Lever. “They have the most direct financial stake in the way we cover issues of war and peace. Unfortunately, they are interested in more war and less peace.”

Since the start of the Ukraine crisis, U.S. defense stocks in leading companies like Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin have surged, and they are expected to continue rising in the coming months. And in the wake of Russia’s invasion, President Biden signed into law a spending package that directs a record-breaking $782 billion towards defense — almost $30 billion above his initial request.

According to The Hill, “The additional Ukraine aid comes on top of more than $1 billion the U.S. has already spent in the past year to arm Ukrainian soldiers with modern weapons, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, manufactured by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies, and Raytheon’s anti-aircraft Stinger missiles.”

Cashing In On Military Experience

With stories about Russia’s invasion dominating the news, networks have had tons of pundit slots to fill. Those spots have largely gone to high-ranking ex-military officials, who often find lucrative careers in the influence industry working on behalf of defense contractors — and who tend to spout hawkish rhetoric that aligns with how corporate media generally covers conflict. Most of the time, however, the networks have failed to divulge how such martial bombast could aid these former officials’ private-sector employers.

For instance, Jeremy Bash, who served as chief of staff at the Pentagon and the CIA under President Barack Obama, has been a recurring guest on MSNBC and NBC during their coverage of the crisis in Ukraine.

Bash, who was named a national security analyst for NBC and MSNBC in 2017, is also a founder and managing director at Beacon Global Strategies, which describes itself as “a strategic advisory firm specializing in international policy, defense, cyber, intelligence, and homeland security.” While Beacon Global Strategies does not disclose its clients, the firm has worked for defense giant Raytheon, according to the New York Times.

Days after Putin first launched the invasion of Ukraine, Bash went on NBC’s Meet the Press, eager to weigh in on the whole affair — presenting it as “an opportunity for the United States and the west to actually deliver a very fatal blow to Russia’s ambitions on the global stage.”

“I think swallowing Ukraine, a country the size of Texas, with 40 million people, is unprecedented since World War II,” he said. “And if the United States can train and equip the Ukrainians and, I think, engage in a second Charlie Wilson’s War, basically the sequel to the movie and the book, which is arming and training a determined force that will shoot Russian aircraft out of the sky, open up those tanks with can-openers, like the Javelins, and kill Russians, which is what our equipment is doing, I think this is a huge opportunity to hit Putin very hard.”

Javelin anti-tank missiles are manufactured jointly by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. At no point did anyone involved in the broadcast mention that Bash’s consulting firm has worked for Raytheon.

Admiral James Stavridis, an advisory board member at Beacon Global Strategies, has also made frequent recent appearances on MSNBC. Stavridis is also the vice chair of global affairs and managing director at private equity giant Carlyle Group, which has a history of investing in the defense and national security markets.

Stavridis pushed a war-hungry stance on MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber shortly after the Russian invasion began.

“In NATO, where I was supreme allied commander, you flood the zone in Eastern Europe,” said Stavridis. “You bring in troops, tanks, missile systems, warships, all the above, in order to send a signal to Vladimir Putin.”

On Meet The Press a couple weeks later, Stavridis recommended that the U.S. send more anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine to allow the country to create its own no-fly zone:

“What we ought to do is give the Ukrainians the ability to create a no-fly zone,” he said. “More Stingers, more missiles that can go higher than Stingers.”

Stinger missiles are manufactured by Raytheon, Beacon Global Strategies’ reported client. Again, MSNBC failed to disclose information about Stavridis’ firm or its work for Raytheon.

Stavridis also called on the United States to approve an arms transfer proposed by Poland, which offered to send Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine — via an American air force base in Germany, with the expectation that the U.S. would then supply Poland with replacement planes. “Get those MiG-29s in their hands,” said Stavridis.

The Biden administration shot down that plan on the basis that it could significantly escalate tensions between the U.S. and Russia. A Pentagon spokesperson said that “we do not believe Poland’s proposal is a tenable one.”

Beacon Global Strategies did not respond to a request for comment.

“I’d Love To See NATO Move In There”

Bash and Stavridis aren’t the only high-ranking national security officials-turned-pundits working as consultants who have lately been beating the drums of war.

Retired U.S. combat general Barry McCaffrey, for example, has been a mainstay on MSNBC. During an appearance on The Beat with Ari Melber, he lauded NATO and the European Union’s early decision to bring more than 7,000 U.S. troops and armored vehicles from Fort Stewart, Georgia, into Germany.

McCaffrey — who made the controversial Gulf War decision for his infantry division to fire on Iraqi soldiers, civilians, and children after a ceasefire was already underway — runs a consulting firm called BR McCaffrey Associates LLC. According to the business’ website, McCaffrey’s firm promises to help clients “build linkages between government and private sector clients; design public relations, media, advertising and legislative strategies; and provide client specific analysis of U.S. and international political and economic issues.”

In the years following 9/11, McCaffrey pushed for an endless Iraq War, including on NBC, without disclosing his financial interests: McCaffrey’s consulting firm was working behind the scenes to help at least one defense company secure a contract supplying Iraq with armored vehicles.

Former CIA Director and retired army general David Petraeus, meanwhile, has made multiple appearances on CNN recently, during which he talked about the need to get MiGs “into Ukrainian skies.” Petraeus is a partner at private equity giant KKR, a firm with significant defense business. He also serves on the board of directors at Optiv, which provides cybersecurity technology and services across the U.S. government, including the Department of Defense.

Retired army general Wesley Clark has also made a handful of appearances on CNN, voicing his opinion that this “battle is a long way from over, provided we can continue to provide replenishment to the weapons to the Ukrainians.”

Clark has long enjoyed a lucrative career working with defense companies. He runs a strategic consulting firm, Wesley K. Clark & Associates, which says it “uses his expertise, relationships, and extensive international reputation and experience in the fields of energy, alternative energy, corporate and national security, logistics, aerospace and defense, and investment banking.”

Last week on CNN, Clark was asked about the idea of sending a NATO task force to patrol waters off the coast of the Ukrainian city of Odessa.

“I’d love to see NATO move in there with a task force,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to happen in the near term because of NATO’s reluctance to come into direct conflict with Russian forces… But I do think it’s important.”

“You Can’t Give Away The Game”

Michèle Flournoy, a former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense under Obama, has appeared on CNN at least twice in recent weeks to advocate for greater direct military support to Ukraine. Flournoy is now co-founder and managing partner at WestExec Advisors, whose clients include aerospace and defense companies like Boeing. She also serves on the board of defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.

Flournoy didn’t disclose any of that when she went on State of the Union in early March to push for increasing military aid to Ukraine. “We need to be supplying Ukrainians with as much as we possibly can, munitions like anti-tank Javelin missiles, anti-air Stinger missiles,” she said. “And I think we should also be trying to get them some more of the planes that they know how to fly, MiGs from Eastern Europe, that could enable them to be much more effective in protecting the skies.”

On Amanpour a few days later, Flournoy doubled down on the idea of providing more weapons to Ukraine.

“I think we need to bend over backwards to help the Ukrainians as much as possible,” she said. “This is not going to be over anytime soon.”

Flournoy’s appearance on Amanpour was one of the rare instances where CNN actually disclosed her work at WestExec Advisors — but the network didn’t mention the firm’s defense-industry clients. Naureckas, of FAIR, doesn’t simply blame pro-war talking heads for failing to disclose their defense-industry ties. He says it’s also up to the journalists running these cable news shows to help the public understand that these “military experts” have a stake in pushing for war.

“Everyone involved is aware of the transaction that is going on,” said Naureckas. “Journalists know this as well, but you can’t admit it because that would spoil the grift if you said, ‘Here’s a person who’s funded by the weapons industry to tell you about this crisis.’ It should be the reporter’s instinct to explain the agenda of the people they are quoting, but because this is such an integral part of what is done in the journalism system, you can’t give away the game.”

CNN and NBC did not respond to requests for comment.

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***

In the wake of reactionary forces (including a neo-Nazi battalion and possible Israeli mercenaries) fighting Russia in Ukraine, Syrian deputy foreign minister, Bashar Al-Jaafari, told Sputnik that there may be a possibility that US special services could be sending ISIS members and Jabhat Al-Nusra (Al-Nusra Front) soldiers to Ukraine.

On Sunday, Syria’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned Sunday “The hysterical escalation campaigns of the US and the West” against Russia, a ministry source told Syrian news agency SANA.

The source pointed out that “The Syrian Arab Republic affirms that Russia has the full right to defend itself and keep imminent danger away from its people in the face of attempts by the West and the United States to threaten its national security and target its stability.”

“Based on the analysis, we can say that this is quite possibly true. We, as a state, have evidence that the US military in Syria is transferring terrorists from one place to another, especially members of the IS and Jabhat al-Nusra [terrorist group banned in Russia],” Jaafari said.

The Syrian official said that previously, the US had deployed terrorists from Syria to Afghanistan and Burkina-Faso, and that Washington’s use of mercenaries is a well-established practice – according to Al-Jaafari, no one should be surprised.

“So one should not be surprised, and we do not exclude, that tomorrow IS terrorists will be sent to Ukraine,” Jaafari said.

Western states, for a long time, have been supporting far-right groups in Ukraine, according to Al-Jaafari, and that they only received support because they are against Russia.

“Many years later [after WWII] people appeared tho [sic] declared their readiness to support the neo-Nazis in Ukraine. But they received the support of these countries and the support of the special services only because they are against Russia. The West will not hesitate to arm the devil against Russia if it is in their interests,” Al-Jaafari told Sputnik.

Zelensky is being used as a pawn of the West

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to Al-Jaafari, is not a politician: the West created this political figure and uses him as a pawn in its strategic interests:

“My personal opinion is that Zelensky does not come from a traditional political institution … His political career is the result of a coup against [former Ukrainian] President [Petro] Poroshenko … Zelensky is being used as a pawn of the West in strategic interests, and [the West] is now undermining his reputation by drawing him into a conflict with Russia. In this vein, we heard his call to exclude Russia from the UN Security Council, as if we were in an animated film,” Al-Jaafari said.

The diplomat recalled that the United Nations Security Council was created on values of international understanding after WWII, and it was created by countries that defeated fascism, including Russia. The Soviet army seized Berlin, which was in the chokehold of Nazis.

“No one has the right to belittle Russia’s role in international balance and maintaining peace and stability. Imagine if there were no Russia and China in the UN Security Council, how many wars and interventions there would be,” Al-Jaafari added.

Syria will counteract the sanctions with Russia

“The UN Security Council was originally created to prevent wars in the world. If a country like Russia is excluded, what role will this organization have? The exclusion of Russia from the Security Council will prevent the council itself from [playing] any role in the world,” said Luna Al-Shibl, top Syrian diplomat on Monday.

The official recalled that the US invaded Iraq completely bypassing the UN Security Council and that it is attempting to weaken the role of the UN Security Council in any way it can.

“And the exclusion of Russia comes in the context of the weakening of this council,” she said.

The top Syrian diplomat added that Syria intends to work with Russia to deal with the repercussions of the sanctions imposed by the US and its allies.

When asked whether Syria will counteract the sanctions jointly with Russia and Belarus, she responded by saying: “of course, Russia has backed us, and we will undoubtedly back it.”

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***

In a significantly escalatory move, Ukraine’s Operational Command South announced Thursday that it hit a Russian warship with a “Ukrainian-made Neptune anti-ship missile” that was operating roughly 60 miles south off the coast of Odesa in southeast Ukraine and that it had started to sink.

“In the Black Sea operational zone, Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles hit the cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet—it received significant damage,” the Ukrainian statement said. “A fire broke out. Other units of the ship’s group tried to help, but a storm and a powerful explosion of ammunition overturned the cruiser and it began to sink.”

Russia’s defense ministry claimed the “accidental fire” on the Soviet-era guided-missile cruiser Moskva had been contained, but left the ship badly damaged. Though the Russian statement initially claimed the cruiser “remained afloat” and measures were being taken to tow it to port, it later admitted the warship had sunk as four Russian ships that had gone to the Moskva’s rescue were hampered by bad weather and by ammunition exploding on board.

Late on Thursday, the Russian ministry said in a statement:

“The cruiser ship Moskva lost its stability when it was towed to the port because of the damage to the ship’s hull that it received during the fire from the detonation of ammunition. In stormy sea conditions, the ship sank.”

The statement added the crew had been safely evacuated to other Black Sea Fleet ships in the area.

Russian news agencies said the 611-foot-long (186 meters) Moskva, with a crew of almost 500, was commissioned in 1983 and refurbished in 1998. It was one of the three cruisers in Russia’s formidable Black Sea Fleet. The Moskva was armed with a range of anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles as well as torpedoes and naval guns and close-in missile defense systems, including 16 anti-ship Vulkan cruise missiles with a range of at least 700 km (440 miles).

Reportedly, the warship was also carrying S-300 anti-air missiles, captured by Russian troops in early days of the military campaign. It is the first time Moscow has lost a cruiser since German planes sank the Chervona Ukraina (Red Ukraine) in 1941 at Sevastopol – the Crimean naval base to which the Moskva was being towed when it sank.

Maksym Marchenko, the Ukrainian governor of the region around Odessa, said the Moskva had been hit by two cruise missiles. “Neptune missiles guarding the Black Sea caused very serious damage,” he said. The Neptune missile that is claimed to have punched a hole in the Moskva’s hull was developed and upgraded by Ukraine from a Soviet missile design. It is fired from a mobile launcher with a range of 100 km.

Western officials reportedly described the Ukrainian claims to have hit the Moskva with anti-ship missiles as “credible”. A senior US defense official noted that five other Russian vessels that had been as close as or closer to the Ukrainian coast than the Moskva had moved at least another 20 nautical miles offshore after the explosion, suggesting an effort to get out of range of Ukrainian missiles.

“In the wake of the damage that the Moskva experienced, all of the northern Black Sea ships have now moved out, away from the northern areas they were operating in,” the defense official told Guardian.

In retaliation for sinking the warship, Russian forces for the first time, since scaling back Russia’s offensive north of the capital announced at the Istanbul peace initiative on March 29, struck military targets in Kyiv, Kherson in the south, the eastern city of Kharkiv and the town of Ivano-Frankivsk in the west, though there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Although Ukraine claimed the Russian warship was struck by a “Ukrainian-made Neptune anti-ship missile,” developed domestically based on the Soviet KH-35 cruise missile that became operational in the Ukrainian naval forces just last year, Politico reported on March 16 that Kyiv had specifically demanded “long-range anti-ship missiles” from Washington.

“A Western diplomat familiar with Ukraine’s requests said Kyiv specifically has asked the US and allies for more Stingers and Starstreak man-portable air-defense systems, Javelins and other anti-tank weapons, ground-based mobile air-defense systems, armed drones, long-range anti-ship missiles, off-the-shelf electronic warfare capabilities, and satellite navigation and communications jamming equipment.”

Lending credence to the reports the United States has already delivered Harpoon anti-ship missiles to Ukraine, the Washington Post reported on March 5:

“During an official visit, a Ukrainian special operations commander told Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and other lawmakers that they were shifting training and planning to focus on maintaining an armed opposition, relying on insurgent-like tactics.

“Ukrainian officials told the lawmakers that they were frustrated that the United States had not sent Harpoon missiles to target Russian ships and Stinger missiles to attack Russian aircraft, Moulton and Waltz said in separate interviews.”

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 7, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley revealed that US and NATO countries have collectively provided roughly 60,000 anti-tank weapons and 25,000 anti-aircraft weapons during NATO’s “weapons for peace” program to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24.

Although Milley did not specifically mention providing Harpoons to Ukrainian forces, according to informed sources, caches of anti-ship missiles had also been provided to Ukraine’s naval forces deployed in Odessa in southeast Ukraine.

In addition to the CIA’s clandestine program for training Ukraine’s largely conscript military and allied neo-Nazi militias in Donbas in east Ukraine aimed at cultivating an anti-Russian insurgency in Ukraine, and the US Special Forces program for training Ukraine’s security forces at Yavoriv Combat Training Center in the western part of the country bordering Poland that was hit by a barrage of 30 Russian cruise missiles killing at least 35 militants on March 13, the Pentagon revealed last week that it had also been training Ukrainian troops that were inside the US before Russia launched its invasion.

The Ukrainian soldiers were participating in a pre-scheduled professional military education program at the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School in Biloxi, Mississippi, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24, according to Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby.

That school is a security cooperation school, operating under the US Special Operations Command in support of “foreign security assistance and geographic combatant commanders’ theater security cooperation priorities.” The Ukrainian forces received “training on patrol craft operations, communications and maintenance,” Kirby said.

Since the conclusion of the course in early March, the Department of Defense provided the group “additional advanced tactical training” on the systems the United States has provided to Ukraine, including on “the Switchblade unmanned aerial vehicle,” Kirby said.

Several batches of Ukrainian naval cadets trained at the Naval Training School in Biloxi, Mississippi, have already returned home to Ukraine and were deployed in Odesa and the rest are now headed back to Ukraine.

Besides receiving advanced tactical training on operating the Switchblade kamikaze drones and unmanned coastal defense boats, included in the additional $800 million in military assistance to Ukraine announced by the Biden administration on Wednesday, the Ukrainian naval cadets also received training on operating long-range anti-ship missiles in the United States.

Reportedly, the US-trained Ukrainian naval forces deployed in Odessa in the southeast scored two hits of Harpoon anti-ship missiles on the Russian guided-missile cruiser Moskva operating 60 miles south off the coast of Odesa that punched a hole in the warship’s hull and ignited a blaze that, in turn, caused the massive amount of ammunition loaded on the cruiser to explode, and the battleship subsequently sank to the bottom of the Black Sea.

To return the favor of halting Russian military campaign north of the capital and focusing on liberating Russian-majority Donbas in east Ukraine, practically spelling an end to Russia’s month-long offensive in the embattled country, NATO powers have announced transferring heavy weapons, including combat tanks, armored personnel carriers, long-range artillery and even helicopters and Soviet MiG aircraft, to Ukraine to escalate the conflict.

The latest $800 million military assistance package to Ukraine announced by the Biden administration on Wednesday includes 11 Mi-17 helicopters that had been earmarked for Afghanistan before the US-backed government collapsed last year. It also includes 18 155mm howitzers, along with 40,000 artillery rounds, 10 counter-artillery radars, 200 armored personnel carriers, 500 Javelin anti-tank missiles, and 300 additional Switchblade drones.

Besides direct military assistance from the United States, the rest of NATO member states are also pouring in significant amount of heavy weapons in Ukraine. Czechoslovakia used to have the most advanced military-industrial complex in Central Europe during the Soviet era. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and subsequent separation of the “conjoined twins” in 1993, the Czech Republic has inherited the Soviet weaponry. Famous of its arms black market, Czech weapons have been found in war theaters as far away as Syria, Libya and South Sudan.

The Czech Republic had delivered tanks, multiple rocket launchers, howitzers and infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine among military shipments that had reached hundreds of millions of dollars and would continue, two Czech defense sources confided to Reuters.

Defense sources confirmed a shipment of five T-72 tanks and five BVP-1, or BMP-1, infantry fighting vehicles seen on rail cars in photographs on Twitter and video footage last week. “For several weeks, we have been supplying heavy ground equipment – I am saying it generally but by definition it is clear that this includes tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, howitzers and multiple rocket launchers,” a senior defense official said.

“What has gone from the Czech Republic is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.” The senior defense official said the Czechs were also supplying a range of anti-aircraft weaponry. Independent defense analyst Lukas Visingr said short-range air-defense systems Strela-10, or SA-13 Gopher in NATO terminology, had been spotted on a train apparently bound for Ukraine.

One agreed shipment authorized by the German government includes 56 Czechoslovak-made infantry fighting vehicles that used to be operated by East Germany. Berlin passed the IFVs on to Sweden at the end of the 1990s, which later sold them to a Czech company that now aims to sell them to Kyiv, according to German Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

After the scuttled aircraft-transfer deal that would’ve seen Poland handing over its entire fleet of 28 Soviet-era MiG-29s to Ukraine in return for the United States “backfilling” the Polish Air Force with American F-16s last month, now Slovakia was in talks with NATO about an arrangement that could allow Bratislava to send fighter jets to Ukraine, Prime Minister Eduard Heger told reporters on April 11.

Considering that the Biden administration has already announced delivering 11 Mi-17 helicopters in its latest $800 million military assistance package to Ukraine, therefore in all likelihood the Slovak aircraft-transfer deal is also going to go through. The Slovak prime minister did not put a number on how many MiG-29 aircraft Slovakia would provide to Ukraine, but the country is reported to have around a dozen.

Eduard Heger said his government wanted to “move away from reliance on the Soviet MiGs” in any case. “This is equipment that we want to finish anyway, because we’re waiting for the F-16s,” he added, referring to US-made jets that Slovakia was scheduled to receive in 2024, though Bratislava could receive American fighter jets earlier as soon as it transfers the MiG fleet to Ukraine.

Asking for permanent US military presence in Central Europe to deter Russia, though making an artificial distinction between “permanent deployment” vs. “rotational deployment at permanent bases” in order to sound like a peacenik, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley proposed before the House Armed Services Committee:

“My advice would be to create permanent bases but don’t permanently station (forces), so you get the effect of permanence by rotational forces cycling through permanent bases,” he said.

“I believe that a lot of our European allies, especially those such as the Baltics or Poland and Romania, and elsewhere — they’re very, very willing to establish permanent bases. They’ll build them, they’ll pay for them.”

“I do think this is a very protracted conflict and I think it’s at least measured in years. I don’t know about decades, but at least years for sure,” said Milley. “I think that NATO, the United States, Ukraine and all of the allies and partners that are supporting Ukraine are going to be involved in this for quite some time.”

“We are now facing two global powers: China and Russia, each with significant military capabilities both who intend to fundamentally change the rules based current global order. We are entering a world that is becoming more unstable and the potential for significant international conflict is increasing, not decreasing,” (Gen. Milley said. emphasis added).

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national security analyst focused on geo-strategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the Middle East and Eurasia regions. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military-industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor of diligently researched investigative reports to Global Research.

Featured image: Russian cruiser Moskva (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

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***

Insanity has often been defined as trying the same thing over and over and getting the same result.

Case in point, Ukraine was seeking NATO membership to bolster its security. This membership would have come at the expense of Russian security, as Russian president Vladimir Putin made clear. To thwart NATO’s (i.e. the US’s) hegemonic ambitions and preserve its own security, Russia felt compelled to address its security concerns. When these Russian security concerns were treated with contempt by the US and Ukraine, Russia took action to protect itself.

Two neutral countries, Finland and Sweden, are seriously contemplating NATO membership, as did Ukraine. Will this increase security for these two countries? There has been no warring between Russia and Finland since 1941-1944 when the Finns decided to ally with Nazi Germany during World War II and fight the Soviet Union. The last Russia-Sweden war was the Finnish War that was fought over two centuries ago (1808-1809).

On its face, one lesson to be drawn from the war between Russia and Ukraine is that Russia sees NATO membership on its border as a threat to its security, and it will act to protect its security.

Why then would any country that has been in relatively peaceful co-existence with Russians since the end of WWII seek a change in that status quo that may very well diminish or destroy that peaceful coexistence?

Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson was circumspect about NATO membership noting that Sweden has to “think about the consequences…. We have to see what is best for Sweden’s security.”

Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin admitted, “Of course, there are many kinds of risks involved…. We have to be prepared for all kinds of actions from Russia…” Surely, Marin is aware of the risks that were posed by the stand off between John F Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev over Soviet stationing of nukes in Cuba (and American nukes in Turkey).

News of further NATO expansion toward Russia has triggered a response from the Kremlin. Spokesperson Dimitry Peskov said Russia was considering militarily bolstering its western flank.

Across the pond, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price was welcoming of an enlarged NATO membership. He repeated, “… we believe NATO’s open door is an open door.”

However, it is quite obvious that the NATO open door has been more a closed door to Russia, as Russia has never been made a full member. It does not take a deep analysis to understand why this is so. NATO proclaims its, “purpose is to guarantee the freedom and security of its members through political and military means.” However, the raison d’être for such a military alliance disappears when there is no enemy on the horizon. Thus, Russia is reified as the NATO boogeyman. The existence of NATO serves well the aims of the governmental-military-industrial complex of the US.

Sweden and Finland are considering whether to formalize NATO membership — a key trigger in Russia’s military response to Ukraine. Some questions that arise:

Do Finland and Sweden not consider Russia’s security concerns valid? While the circumstances differ, why would these two Nordic countries try what failed for Ukraine and expect a benign response?

Would the presence of Russian nukes and hypersonic weapons targeting their countries make the Swedes and Finns feel more secure?

Instead of being regularly badgered to increase military expenditures as a NATO member, wouldn’t it be better to nix the insanity of spending the hard-earned cash of the Nordic workers on guns, tanks, planes, and missiles and becoming less secure as a result? Wouldn’t the money of the Nordic citizenry be put to better use for housing, road repair, poverty reduction, hospitals, recreation centers, and schools at home?

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Kim Petersen is a scuba diver, independent writer, and former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. Twitter: @kimpetersen. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

This article was originally published in November 2021 under the title: Putin Says West Taking Russia’s ‘Red Lines’ Too Lightly is of significance to an understanding of unfolding events in Ukraine and Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine on February 24, 2022

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President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday (18 November 2021) that the West was taking Russia’s warnings not to cross its “red lines” too lightly and that Moscow needed serious security guarantees from the West.

In a wide-ranging foreign policy speech, the Kremlin leader also described relations with the United States as “unsatisfactory” but said Russia remained open to dialogue with Washington.

The Kremlin said in September that NATO would overstep a Russian red line if it expanded its military infrastructure in Ukraine, and Moscow has since accused Ukraine and NATO of destabilising behaviour, including in the Black Sea.

In the televised speech, Putin complained that Western strategic bombers carrying “very serious weapons” were flying within 20 km (12.5 miles) of Russia’s borders.

“We’re constantly voicing our concerns about this, talking about red lines, but we understand our partners – how shall I put it mildly – have a very superficial attitude to all our warnings and talk of red lines,” Putin said.

NATO – with which Moscow severed ties last month – had destroyed all mechanisms for dialogue, Putin said.

He told foreign ministry officials that Russia needed to seek long-term guarantees of its security from the West, though he said this would be difficult and did not spell out what form the assurances should take.

Russia-West ties have been at post-Cold War lows for years, but the tone has sharpened in recent weeks as Ukraine and NATO countries have raised fears over Russian troop movements near Ukraine’s borders and tried to guess Moscow’s real intentions.

But despite a growing list of disputes, the Kremlin has maintained high-level contacts with Washington and spoken repeatedly of a possible summit between Putin and US President Joe Biden to follow up their initial meeting in Geneva in June, which Putin said had opened up room for an improvement in ties.

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan discussed cybersecurity, Ukraine and the migrant crisis on the Belarus border in a phone call on Wednesday, the Kremlin said.

“This was all in the framework of preparation for … high-level contact,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

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Featured image is from The Unz Review

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Conservation groups filed a formal notice today of their intent to sue an international mining company to protect critical desert streams and washes in southern Arizona’s Santa Rita Mountains.

Today’s notice says Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals is violating the Clean Water Act by dumping dirt and rocks into a wash at the company’s proposed Rosemont Copper World Expansion, on private land on the western slope of the Santa Rita Mountains. Federal laws require a permit before discharging anything into U.S. waterways.

“It’s appalling to see Rosemont running roughshod over the feet of these beautiful mountains,” said Allison Melton, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This may be private property, but the company doesn’t have the right to pollute waters our communities and wildlife need to survive. We’re putting Rosemont on notice that it needs to stop operations now and go through the Clean Water Act permit process.”

Rosemont, a Hudbay subsidiary, intends to ramp up grading and clearing the 3,500-acre site southeast of Sahuarita this month, but it has not applied for a Clean Water Act permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Aerial photos taken earlier in April show soil and rocks spilling into and filling portions of a wash, part of a network of ephemeral streams that flow across the proposed mine site and downstream to the Santa Cruz River.

“After years of declaring little or no interest in the western slopes of the Santa Rita Mountains, Rosemont is now showing their true hand,” said Gayle Hartmann, board president of Save the Scenic Santa Ritas. “They want to pursue complete and utter destruction of the ridgeline and slopes of the northern Santa Ritas. An almost certain outcome would be serious impacts to our already fragile watershed, in particular washes that support the Santa Cruz River. We’re not going to stand by and let the company ignore federal law as they significantly deface a beloved, local sky island.”

Rosemont’s original copper mine plans, on the east side of the Santa Rita Mountains, have been stymied by multiple losses in court. The westside expansion proposal calls for two new open pits and three tailings waste piles, where it would dump at least 64 million tons of waste. It intends to fill the washes and streams throughout the mine site and connect to its proposed Rosemont Copper mine.

“This wanton destruction of desert washes is unconscionable and inconsistent with the mandates of the Clean Water Act,” said Sandy Bahr, director for Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter. “We simply cannot stand by and allow this multinational mining company to harm our precious Arizona waters.”

Washes and other ephemeral streams like those on the mine expansion site play a vital role in maintaining the chemical, physical and biological health of waters downstream. In addition to the buried wash, the Center’s aerial photos showed a vast network of roads, grading and hillside excavation.

“Once again Hudbay feels it’s above the law in its quest to mine the Santa Rita Mountains,” said Roger Featherstone, director of the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition. “As U.S. courts have found, Hudbay’s plans to mine at Rosemont are illegal. Now, instead of revising their Rosemont plan to obey the law, the Canadian mining company has come up with a bizarre plan to cobble together a project that would destroy the west side of the Santa Rita Mountains. This plan clearly violates the Clean Water Act and we have no choice but to go to court to stop this blatant violation of federal law.”

Last week EarthJustice, representing three Arizona Tribes, sent Hudbay a similar notice of intent to sue over violations of the Clean Water Act at the expansion site.

The 60-day notices are required before filing a lawsuit to compel the company to comply with the Clean Water Act. Rosemont can avoid the violations by suspending work at the site.

On the other side of the mountain range, Rosemont still wants to blast a mile-wide, half-mile-deep pit, as well as pile toxic mine tailings and waste rock hundreds of feet high across nearly 2,500 acres in the headwaters of Davidson Canyon, a tributary to Cienega Creek, which replenishes Tucson’s groundwater basin. The mine would also destroy prime jaguar habitat — land that’s critical to the survival and recovery of jaguars in the United States and has been home to a jaguar known as El Jefe.

The Rosemont Mine has faced numerous legal challenges.

In 2017 the conservation groups filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Forest Service’s approval of the mine, and in 2019 a judge overturned the agency’s approval and the underlying environmental analysis for the mine project, sending both back to the Forest Service. Hudbay and the U.S. Justice Department appealed, and that appeal is pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In September 2017 the Center sued to challenge a biological opinion from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that determined the mine would not jeopardize threatened and endangered species in the area. In 2020 a district court struck down the biological opinion, and that ruling was not appealed.

Aerial photo of Rosemont Copper World expansion, Santa Rita Mountains, Arizona. Photo credit: Center for Biological Diversity Images are available for media use.

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For over five decades, Palestinian children and their families have experienced the injustices of the Israeli occupation. To our children, this occupation has served as a school of daily experiential learning. This happens at Israeli-monitored checkpoints that fragment our towns and restrict our movement; during clashes where Israeli occupation forces shoot and sometimes kill, unarmed Palestinians; during repressive curfews, closures, home raids and demolitions; through settler violence, and the day-to-day humiliations faced by a people under occupation.

Undoubtedly, the occupying Power has constituted an informal curriculum, whose master teachers have instilled and cultivated existential fear, a profound sense of insecurity, loss, bitterness and anger in the hearts and minds of our children. The impact of Israel’s oppressive policies against our children, in violation of international law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, is tremendous and far-reaching since they touch not only the five senses but leave deep physical, mental, psychological, emotional, and spiritual scars that are hard to heal given the continued occupation.

In over twenty years, and based on documentation by Defense for Children International- Palestine (DCIP), more than 2,200 Palestinian children were killed by the Israeli occupying forces and settlers in the occupied Palestinian territory. At the end of 2021, the same organization conducted an investigation and concluded that last year was the “deadliest year for Palestinian children since 2014.”

Since the beginning of the year, Israel, the occupying Power, has continued to terrorize the Palestinian people, including women, children, and the elderly. As a result, many Palestinians have been killed, hundreds injured, and more than a thousand detained. This is in addition to over 1,400 military raids into Palestinian villages and cities in the occupied West Bank, and 85 demolition operations documented by UNOCHA, which displaced almost 230 people, half of them were children, and otherwise affected nearly 1,140 Palestinians, nearly half of them are children.

On the occasion of Palestinian Child Day on 5 April and the Palestinian Prisoner Day on 17 April, this report provides an overview of the various Israeli violations committed by Israel’s occupying forces and settlers during the first three months of 2022^[1] in the occupied West Bank against our children, who represent nearly  44% of the entire Palestinian population in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

I. Killings

The Israeli occupying forces (IOF) killed 24 Palestinians, five of which are under the age of 18: Mohammad Abu Salah (17) from Al-Yamoun town in Jenin, Mohammad Salah (14) from Al- Khadder town in Bethlehem, Shadi Najem (18) from Jenin refugee camp, Nader Rayan (17) from Balata refugee camp in Nablus, and Sanad Abu Attiya (17) from Jenin refugee camp.

The bodies of the following Palestinian children martyrs remain withheld in Israeli custody^[2]:

1. Mohammad Nasser Trereh (17) from Hebron since 30 June 2016
2. Khaled Abdel A’al (17) from Gaza since 2 July 2018
3. Mohammad Dar Yousef (17) from Ramallah since 26 July 2018
4. Mohammad Abu Mandil (17) from Gaza since 22 January 2020
5. Mahmoud Kamil (17) from Jenin since 21 December 2020
6. Atallah Rayyan (17) from Salfit since 26 January 2021
7. Zuhdi Al-Tawil (17) from Jerusalem since 24 May 2021
8. Yousef Subuh (16) from Jenin since 26 September 2021
9. Mohammad Younes (16) from Nablus since 6 December 2021

II. Injuries

Nearly 1,600 Palestinians were injured^[3], including nearly 40 children that were hospitalized according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, as well as others who suffocated from tear gas inhalation. Many of these injuries happened during protests (in Hebron, Budrus village, Qalendia refugee camp, Jerusalem, Beita village, Kufr Qaddoum village, and other places throughout the occupied West Bank) against the IOF, who often responded with rubber-coated metal bullets, stun grenades, and tear gas canisters. Among the young wounded Palestinians was Ahmad Thawabteh (13), who was briefly arrested and later released after being severely beaten and breaking his leg. Among the injured were 11-year-old children, including Munawar Burqan (details about the incident later in the report) with special needs from occupied Jerusalem, who was seriously injured after a stun grenade was fired at her face by the IOF. The youngest among the wounded was a 6 months-old baby.

Below are some examples of Palestinian children injured by the IOF and later abused in prison^[4]:

• Ahmad Flanna, from Safa town in Ramallah, turned 17 on 4 April. Ahmad was shot five times and abused by the IOF before being arrested on 26 February 2021. While incarcerated, Ahmad had several surgeries at an Israeli hospital without informing his family. The occupation authorities had also interrogated him while in the hospital without regard to his health condition. Ahmed, a student in the first year of secondary school, is currently detained in “Megiddo” prison. A hearing at an Israeli court is scheduled for today, 12 April.
• Issa Al-Titi (17) from Al-Aroub Refugee Camp was shot by the IOF in September 2020, leaving him with disfiguring injuries to his face, a fractured skull, and severe head injuries. He stayed in an Israeli hospital for eight days before being transferred to the “Megiddo” prison and then to the “Ofer” prison. Today, a permanent headache plagues him due to the Israeli prison administration’s indifference to providing him with necessary medical treatment. They also keep him from meeting his brothers, Jihad and Mohammad, who are also detained in Israeli jails. Issa was sentenced to 13 months in prison and was released in January 2022.
• Mohammad Al-Sheikh (17) from Al-Ezzariya was arrested in August 2019 after shooting him with several bullets in the body. Naseem Abu Rumi, his friend, was killed by the IOF in occupied Jerusalem the same day. Mohammed underwent several surgeries in an Israeli hospital after his arrest. He stayed there for ten days before being transferred to the “Ramle” prison clinic, where he remained for four months. Despite suffering from a bullet near his heart, and shrapnel in his body, Mohammed is currently being held under harsh detention conditions in “Ofer” prison. His health is deteriorating due to Israel’s inhumane policy of medical negligence.

III. Arrests^[5]

The IOF arrested over 1,300 Palestinian children in 2021, more than 9,000 Palestinian children between 2015 and the end of March 2022, and more than 19,000 Palestinian children since the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000.

Until the end of March 2022, the number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons reached over 4,400 prisoners, including 160 children who continue to suffer additional abuse during their arrest. Currently, three children are being held under administrative detention: Amal Nakhleh (18), arrested on 21 January 2021, who suffers from myasthenia gravis disease and needs regular and careful medical treatment, Mohammad Mansour (18), who was arrested on 9 April 2021, and  Sami Al-Harimi who was arrested on 20 September 2021.

There are various examples of Palestinian children who spent their childhood in Israeli prisons, including Nurhan Awwad, who was 16 years old when arrested in 2015, and Malak Suleiman, who was 16 years old in 2016: each girl was sentenced to ten years in prison. Also, Muhannad Jwehan, who was 16 years old when arrested in 2002, and Amjad Abu Rmeileh, who was 15 years old when arrested in 2002: each received a sentence of 25 years in prison.

Noting that not all incidents were documented: during the reporting period, the IOF arrested and briefly detained at least 100 Palestinian children during Israeli military raids into Palestinian cities, towns, and villages, including Ragheb Samhan (10) in Ras Karkar village (Ramallah), Qasim Al-Hamuz (13) in Al-Fawwar refugee camp (Hebron), Mohammad Haddad (10) in Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood (occupied Jerusalem), Ahmad Thawabteh (13) near the entrance of Beit Fajjar town (Bethlehem) after severely beating him and breaking his leg, and Ahmed Al-Eis (9) near Al-Jalazon refugee camp (Ramallah).

IV. Israeli Settlers’ Terrorism/ Violence

During the reporting period, three incidents of settlers’ attacks were documented, per the following:

• On  9 January: a group of settlers attacked the family of Adel Al-Salameen in southeast Tammun town in northern Jordan Valley. They beat his wife and children, stole one of his sheep, and stole a mobile phone.
• On 24 January: As settlers marched from Za’tara junction to Hawara checkpoint, passing through the town of Huwara, they attacked several Palestinian homes and shops; damaging 51 vehicles, destroying the fronts of four shops, and severely beating Al-Muntasir Damidi (17) who sustained bruises and was admitted to Nablus government hospital for treatment.
• On 18 February: while driving a vehicle, a settler ran over Othman Sabra (7), a resident of Jinsafut village in Qalqilya governorate. Othman sustained bruises and was admitted to the hospital.

V. In Focus: Israeli Attacks against Palestinian Children in occupied Jerusalem

During the reporting period, the IOF arrested at least 140 children in the city^[6], in addition to issuing several house arrests orders against many of them, including Omar Abu Mayyaleh (13) and  Mohammad Zaytoun (13).

The harshest detention was carried out against Daoud Hijazi (12) and Mohammad Sunnukrot (9), both residents of Issawiya town on 6 March 2022. B’Tselem, an Israeli organization, published a video showing Israeli soldiers holding the children by the hand while they cried and pleaded in vain for their release. The children and their mothers were later taken to the police station. The interrogation lasted half an hour and Daoud was forced to enter the interrogation room alone without his mother. Three hours after his mother signed bail, he was released and put under house arrest for five days. In the case of Mohammad, he was not interrogated but his mother was threatened that if her son was detained again, the police would contact welfare services, who would transfer him to a care centre. In his testimony to B’Tselem, Daoud said: “I was on the way home with a friend and neighbour of mine, Mohammad Sinuqrut. Suddenly, I saw Border Police officers running towards us. I didn’t know where they’d come from. One of them grabbed me by the hand and pressed it. My hand was broken once and has platinum implants in it. I shouted in pain and ask him to let go, and then he grabbed my other hand. They sat me down on a boulder and made Mohammad sit on it, too.”

The case of Ahmad Manasra from occupied Jerusalem represents another stark example of the severity of Palestinian children’s suffering in Israeli prisons. Ahmad was 13 years and 9 months old when arrested in 2015. Ahmad was shot and left to bleed on the ground while watching his cousin die in front of his eyes in a horrific scene watched by many throughout the world. He was denied urgent medical help and was later subjected to psychological torture during interrogation. He initially received a 12-year-sentence for allegedly taking part in a “knife attack,” which was reduced to nine and a half years. Ahmed suffers from a severe head injury and, according to a recent medical report, needs psychological and personal care. In prison, he was kept in solitary confinement for long periods which further deteriorated his psychological well-being. Ahmad is now 20 years old and is scheduled to appear in front of an Israeli District Court in Bir Saba’ for an appeal hearing tomorrow, 13 April, amidst a major international campaign calling for his immediate release. Manasra is expected to be released in June 2024.

Nufuz Hammad (15) is the youngest Palestinian female prisoner, a resident of Sheikh Jarrah whose family is facing the threat of home eviction. Together with her friend Isra’, Nufuz was arrested on 8 December 2021; they were both subjected to 10 days of consecutive interrogation in the Israeli police interrogation centre. Two weeks after interrogation, Isra’ was released while Nufuz is still detained in “A-Damun” prison without sentence.  It wasn’t Hammad’s first arrest: back in June 2021, she was arrested for painting the Palestinian flag on the faces of her colleagues during an entertainment event for children in the neighbourhood. Hammad was then taken to an Israeli police station for questioning.

Other selected examples of Israeli violations against Palestinian children in occupied Jerusalem^[7]:

• Ali Quneibi (13), a resident of the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied Jerusalem, is one of the victims of Israel’s house arrest policy. Ali was arrested more than five months ago on charges of “assaulting a settler’s car.” For days, his detention was extended before his release to house arrest. As Ahmad was unable even to join his friends in playing, the house window was his only escape. Also, he wasn’t allowed to go outside to the yard or to his school without an official permit from the occupation. After four months of his imprisonment, he could go to school accompanied by a family member.
• Munawar Burqan (11)  with hearing disability (and uses two cochlear implants) from the Shufat neighbourhood. Munawar was hit by a stun grenade fired by the occupation police in the vicinity of Damascus Gate (Bab Al-Amoud), resulting in severe facial injuries and a broken jaw. Having eaten sweets with her sisters in the Old City, Munawar was on her way back to her home through Damascus gate. Together with her sister, Munawar was among the tens of thousands of Palestinians who were heading to the Al-Aqsa Mosque to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Isra and Mi’raj.
• On 27 Feb, the IOF arrested two children Oday Al- Haddad (10) and Mohammad Al- Haddad (12) from their house in the old city on charges of raising the Palestine flag in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood.

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Notes

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Washington’s European allies that the US believes the war in Ukraine could last through the end of 2022, CNN reported Friday, citing two European officials.

The report said that many Western officials have assessed there’s no short-term end in sight for the war, and public comments from US officials have reflected this. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has warned of a “protracted conflict” that he said could go on “for months or even longer.”

Last week, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley has said he believes the war will continue for years.

“I do think this is a very protracted conflict, and I think it’s measured in years. I don’t know about decade, but at least years for sure,” he told the House Armed Services Committee.

A senior State Department official told CNN that Blinken has “has discussed with his counterparts our concern that the conflict could be protracted, but all of his engagements have revolved around how best to bring it to a halt as quickly as possible.”

But Blinken hasn’t explored diplomacy with Russia as a potential avenue to bring about an end to the war. Blinken hasn’t spoken with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, since February 15, and President Biden doesn’t appear to have plans to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Instead of diplomacy with Moscow, the US is significantly increasing its military aid to Ukraine. On Wednesday, Biden authorized a new $800 million weapons package for Ukraine, bringing the total military aid pledged since Russia invaded on February 24 to about $2.6 billion.

A second senior State Department official told CNN that the US has “done a lot and so we do have faith and we always had faith in our Ukrainian partners. But as the fight doubles down, so does our commitment to give them weapons and equipment that they can use.”

Russia formally warned the US this week to stop arming Ukraine in a diplomatic note sent to the State Department by the Russian Embassy in Washington. The Russians said that the Western campaign to arm Ukraine was “adding fuel” to the conflict and could lead to “unpredictable consequences.”

Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in negotiations, but the US and its allies have signaled they don’t want Kyiv to grant any concessions to Moscow. The Washington Post reported last week that for some NATO members “it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying, than to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv and the rest of Europe.”

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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.

Featured image is from Al Mayadeen

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A Swedish folk band was banned from performing at a benefit concert to support Ukraine because they play a Russian musical instrument, with outraged critics claiming the balalaika was as bad as displaying a Nazi swastika.

No, this isn’t the Babylon Bee.

Södra Bergens Balalaikor, a band first formed in 1969, had been scheduled to play a charity concert to support Ukraine in the Swedish city of Uppsala.

However, their appearance was cancelled after bedwetting morons complained that the balalaika, a three-string musical instrument with a characteristic triangular wooden body, was a “national symbol of Russia.”

“People wrote that the balalaika is a symbol for Russia and to play for Ukraine on a balalaika is a sacrilege. They compared it to a swastika,” Jonas Nyberg, one of the members of the orchestra, told Swedish broadcaster SVT.

“You can have some sympathy in this situation because people are upset and angry. But the argument gets a little weird. We are not Russians, we just happen to play Russian instruments, as we have done all these years. Our Ukrainian musician friends don’t understand it as well,” Nyberg added.

This is just the latest example of how anything remotely Russian, despite it having no connection whatsoever to Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, is being culturally cleansed.

As we highlighted earlier this month, the British National Gallery changed the name of a 19th century painting by French impressionist Edgar Degas from ‘Russian Dancers’ to ‘Ukrainian Dancers’ due to the “current situation.”

The University of Milano-Bicocca also attempted to cancel a teaching course about the 19th century writer Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Russian prodigy pianist Alexander Malofee was also dropped from performing for the Montreal Symphony Orchestra after complaints by Ukrainians, while chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic Valery Gergiev faced similar cancellation after failing to pass an ideological purity test.

Siberian cats were also banned from appearing in international cat competitions, while a prize-winning Russian tree was also stripped of its title.

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First published on September 30, 2021

Since the beginning of the health crisis, the French government has claimed that early treatment was ineffective. It has  imposed major restrictions on our freedoms, in particular on doctors’ prescriptions,[1]

It has also promised that vaccination would achieve collective immunity, the end of the crisis and a return to normal life.

But the failure for 18 months of this so-called “health strategy” based on false simulations, innumerable lies, promises never kept, as well as the propaganda and fear campaign has become unbearable.

In turn this has been followed by the extortion of consent to be vaccinated, by outright blackmail, while curtailing our freedoms to move and socialize, our right to work and engage in leisure activities. 

Are the current vaccines that they want to impose on us effective?

Can they lead to a collective immunity or is it only a myth? To answer this question, we will make the current sanitary assessment of the most vaccinated countries according to the figures provided by the World Health Organization and the curves of OurWorldinData. (From Vaccine outset in December 2020 to September 15, 2021)

Record mortality in Gibraltar, champion of Astra Zeneca injections

Gibraltar (34,000 inhabitants) started vaccination in December 2020 when the health agency counted only 1040 confirmed cases and 5 deaths attributed to covid19 in this country. After a very comprehensive vaccination blitz, achieving 115% coverage (vaccination was extended to many Spanish visitors), the number of new infections increased fivefold (to 5314) and the number of deaths increased 19fold. The number of deaths increased 19-fold, reaching 97, i.e. 2853 deaths per million inhabitants, which is one of the European mortality records. But those responsible for the vaccination deny any causal link without proposing any other plausible etiology. And after a few months of calm, the epidemic resumed, confirming that 115% vaccination coverage does not protect against the disease.

Malta: 84% vaccine coverage, but just as ineffective

Malta is one of the European champions of pseudo-vaccines: on this island of 500,000 inhabitants, nearly 800,000 doses have been administered, ensuring a vaccine coverage of nearly 84% with a delay of about 6 months.

But since the beginning of July 2021, the epidemic has started again and the serious (fatal) forms are increasing, forcing the authorities to recognize that vaccination does not protect the population and to impose restrictions.

Here again, the recurrence of the epidemic in terms of cases and mortality proves that a high rate of vaccination does not protect the population.

In Iceland, people no longer believe in herd immunity

In this small country of 360,000 inhabitants, more than 80% are primo-vaccinated and 75% have a complete vaccination cycle. But by mid-July 2021, new daily infections had risen from about 10 to about 120, before stabilizing at a rate higher than the pre-vaccination period. This sudden recurrence convinced the chief epidemiologist of the impossibility of obtaining collective immunity through vaccination. “It’s a myth,” he publicly declared.

Belgium: recurrence of the disease despite vaccination

In Belgium, nearly 75% of the population is primo-vaccinated. And 65% of the population has a complete vaccination cycle. However, since the end of June 2021, the number of new daily infections has risen from less than 500 to nearly 2000. As RTBF acknowledges, in the face of the Delta variant, current vaccination is far from sufficient to protect the population.

Singapore abandons the hope of “Zero Covid” through vaccines

This small country is also highly vaccinated and nearly 80% of the population has received at least one dose. But since August 20, 2021, it has had to face an exponential resumption of the epidemic with an increase in cases from about ten in June to more than 150 at the end of July and 1246 cases on September 24.

This uncontrolled recurrence of the disease despite vaccination has led to the abandonment of the strategy of eradicating the virus for a model of “living with the virus” by trying to treat the disease “like the flu“.

In the UK: a worrying rise in infections

The United Kingdom is the European champion of Astra Zeneca vaccination, with more than 70% of the population vaccinated for the first time, and 59% with a complete vaccination schedule. This high “vaccination” rate did not prevent an explosion of cases at the beginning of the summer, with up to 60,000 new cases per day by mid-July.

Faced with this significant resumption of the epidemic despite vaccination, Andrew Pollard, representative of the Oxford Vaccine Group, acknowledged before Parliament: “collective immunity through vaccination is a myth“.

This resumption of infections has been accompanied by a resumption of hospitalizations, severe cases and deaths. According to the official report of August,[2] deaths were more frequent among fully vaccinated patients (679) than among non-vaccinated patients (390), thus cruelly denying the hopes of a protective effect of the vaccine on mortality.

After the last sanitary restrictions were lifted, the epidemic decreased to a level of less than 30,000 cases per day, whereas at the beginning of July, simulations by covid specialists were predicting up to 100,000 new cases per day if the sanitary measures were removed.

Israel: obvious post-vaccination disaster denied by officials

Israel, champion of the Pfizer injection, once everywhere cited as an example of effectiveness, is now being harshly reminded of reality and is now the model of vaccine failure.

70% of the population is primo-vaccinated, and nearly 90% of those at risk have a complete vaccination cycle. But the epidemic has rebounded stronger than ever since the end of June, and more than 11,000 new cases were recorded in 1 day (September 14, 2021) surpassing the peaks seen in January 2021 during the outbreak following the first Pfizer injections by nearly 50%.

This resumption of the epidemic, despite the Pfizer injections, is accompanied by an increase in hospitalizations where the vaccinated represent the majority of those hospitalized.

Vaccination does not protect against severe forms of the disease or against death.

End of July: 71% of the 118 seriously ill Israelis (serious, critical) were fully vaccinated!

This proportion of seriously ill people vaccinated is much higher than the proportion of fully vaccinated people: 61%. To claim that the vaccine protects against serious forms of the disease, as the Israeli Minister of Health imprudently declared, is a mistake (or disinformation?).

In order not to acknowledge its mistakes, the Israeli government remains in denial of this obvious failure and continues to propose only vaccination as a solution. How many more deaths will it take before it follows the example of India or Japan and finally adopts early treatment?

Conclusions

The current pseudo vaccines are not effective enough. They do not prevent the recurrence of the epidemic, nor hospitalizations, nor severe forms, nor death. In Israel and Great Britain, which specify the vaccination status of the victims, the vaccinated suffer from an increased risk of mortality compared to the non-vaccinated.

The pursuit of a vaccine-only policy leads to a deadly impasse, whereas countries that officially advise early treatment (India) or allow their doctors to prescribe it (Japan, Korea) fare much better.

What are our health authorities waiting for to stop believing in false simulations carried out by epidemiologists who are too closely linked to vaccine companies, to look at the proven facts and to interrupt their deceptive and deleterious pro-vaccination campaign and recommend early treatment?

The continuation of the ban on early treatment by treating physicians leads to a loss of chances for many patients and directly engages the responsibility of the government and particularly the Minister of Health.

Dr Gérard Delépine is an oncologist and statistician

Translated from French by Global Research.

Notes

[1] For the first time in 2500 years…

[2] SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England Technical briefing 21
Published August 2021 Public Health England Gateway number : GOV 9374 20 August 2021

The original source of this article is nouveau-monde.ca, published on our French language web site mondialisation.ca
Copyright © Dr. Gérard Delépine, nouveau-monde.ca, 2021

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First published on April 7, 2022

***

While much of the “mainstream” world has spent the last few days obsessing over and debating the celebrity spectacle surrounding American actor Will Smith slapping American comedian Chris Rock, the international elitists were meeting in Dubai for the 2022 World Government Summit.

From March 28th to the 30th, corporate media journalists, heads of state, and CEOs of some of the most profitable companies in the world met for discussions on shaping the direction of the next decade and beyond. Anyone with a functioning brain should ignore the tabloids and instead pay attention to this little known gathering of globalist Technocrats.

Let’s take a look at the speakers and the panels, starting with Mr. Great Reset himself, Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum.

Schwab gave a talk entitled, Our World Today… Why Government Must Act Now?.  “Thank you, to his excellency for enabling this initiative to define a longer-term narrative to make the world more resilient more inclusive and more sustainable,” Schwab stated during his address. The use of the term narrative is important because in January 2021, Klaus and the World Economic Forum announced the next phase of The Great Reset, The Great Narrative.

As with The Great Narrative event, the World Government Summit was also held in Dubai. As I wrote during the Great Narrative meeting:

“While the political leaders of the UAE and Klaus Schwab may promote themselves as the heroes of our times, we should judge them according to their actions and the company they keep, not the flowery language they use to distract us. The simple fact is the UAE has a horrible record on human rights. The nation is known for deporting those who renounce Islam, limited press freedoms, and enforcing elements of Sharia law.”

During Schwab’s short talk he also mentioned his pet project “the 4th Industrial Revolution“, which is essentially the digital panopticon of the future, where digital surveillance is omnipresent and humanity uses digital technology to alter our lives. Often associated with terms like the Internet of Things, the Internet of Bodies, the Internet of Humans, and the Internet of Senses, this world will be powered by 5G and 6G technology. Of course, for Schwab and other globalists, the 4IR also lends itself towards more central planning and top-down control. The goal is a track and trace society where all transactions are logged, every person has a digital ID that can be tracked, and social malcontents are locked out of society via social credit scores.

Immediately following Schwab was a panel which made no attempt to hide the goals of the globalists.

The panel, Are We Ready for A New World Order?, featured Fred Kempe, president and CEO of the Atlantic Council since 2007, as well as an anchor for CNN and a former advisor to former US president George W. Bush. Before joining the Council, Kempe was a prize-winning editor and reporter at the Wall Street Journal for more than 25 years.

In fact, the Atlantic Council had a fairly large presence at the World Government Summit, including appearances by Defne Arslan, senior director of the Atlantic Council IN TURKEY program, and Olga Khakova, Deputy Director of Global Energy Center of Atlantic Council.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Atlantic Council, I first reported in May 2018 that Facebook had partnered with the thinktank connected to NATO. I wrote:

“The Atlantic Council of the United States was established in 1961 to bolster support for international relations. Although not officially connected to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Atlantic Council has spent decades promoting causes and issues which are beneficial to NATO member states. In addition, The Atlantic Council is a member of the Atlantic Treaty Organization, an umbrella organization which “acts as a network facilitator in the Euro-Atlantic and beyond.” The ATO works similarly to the Atlantic Council, bringing together political leaders, academics, military officials, journalists and diplomats to promote values that are favorable to the NATO member states. Officially, ATO is independent of NATO, but the line between the two is razor thin.

Essentially, the Atlantic Council is a think tank which can offer companies or nation states access to military officials, politicians, journalists, diplomats, etc. to help them develop a plan to implement their strategy or vision. These strategies often involve getting NATO governments or industry insiders to make decisions they might not have made without a visit from the Atlantic Council team. This allows individuals or nations to push forth their ideas under the cover of hiring what appears to be a public relations agency but is actually selling access to high-profile individuals with power to affect public policy. Indeed, everyone from George H.W. Bush to Bill Clinton to the family of international agent of disorder Zbigniew Brzezinski have spoken at or attended council events.”

Less than 6 months after Facebook and The Atlantic Council announced their partnership, more than 500 FB pages were accused of being “Russian disinformation” and deleted. The pages largely consisted of anti-war, police accountability, and independent journalism outlets. These pages and journalists directly challenged the narratives spun by the Atlantic Council stooges.

Dissecting the World Government Summit: Ukraine, SDGs, ESG, Blockchain, and AI

While many of the names in attendance might be unfamiliar to a western audience, the speakers are men and women who absolutely play a vital role in international geopolitics.

Some of the featured speakers include:

• António Guterres, Secretary General of United Nations, giving a talk tiled Is Our World Today… Our World of Tomorrow?
• Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director General of World Health Organization
• David Pekoske, Administrator of USA Transportation Security Administration
• Dr. Kaitlyn Sadtler, an American immunologist and bioengineer and Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigator at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, part of the US NIH. She gave a presentation about Re-engineering Immunity with Next Generation Technologies
• H.H. Sheikh Sabah AlSabah, Prime Minister of Government of the State of Kuwait
• Jeon Hae cheol, Minister of the Interior and Safety of Government of the Republic of Korea
• Supattanapong Punmeechaow, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy of Secretariat of the Prime Minister of Thailand
• Mrs. Belinda Balluku is the Minister of Infrastructure and Energy of the Republic of Albania
• Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo Secretary General of OPEC, speaking about “Oil and Gas in a Net-Zero World“

The Russia-Ukraine conflict ​​​​​​​was also part of the discussions. Notably, Maxim Timchenko, CEO of DTEK, made an appearance. His bio states, “under his leadership, DTEK has evolved from a regional conventional energy company into Ukraine’s largest private investor as well as leading energy company.”

The appearance of Mr. Timchenko should not be overlooked, especially because he appears in a discussion called Post-Crisis Ukraine: New Energy for a New Europe, featuring Olga Khakova of the Atlantic Council, and Paula Dobriansk, Senior Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School of Government of Atlantic Council. Again, the presence of the Atlantic Council should not be taken lightly. They are the representatives of the Western Bloc of the New World Order.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict also factors into another panel title, Getting Off Russian Gas: Practical Steps for Europe, featuring more of the Atlantic Council goons, including Richard Morningstar, Founding Chairman of Global Energy Center, Atlantic Council, and Phillip Cornell, Senior Fellow of Global Energy Center, Atlantic Council.

The World Government Summit also spent considerable time discussing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which form the core of the Agenda 2030, itself part of The Great Reset agenda. Some speakers discussing the SDGs include:

• Dr. Mahmoud Safwat Mohieldi, the United Nations Special Envoy for the 2030 Finance Agenda, who is speaking on a panel about Arab Nations and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
• María Sandoval, First Lady of Colombia of Government of Republic of Colombia, discussed “The Role of Women in Achieving the SDGs“. The first day of the summit was actually dedicated to the role women will play in rolling out the so-called New World Order and global governance schemes. Sandoval celebrated the fact that Colombian President Ivan Duque launched “the first national development plan that was directly aligned with the SDGs, and this of course was something that provided a wider spectrum for women to act react and participate in these achievements of the SDGs.”
• Catherine Russell, Executive Director of United Nations Children Fund, participated in a panel titled SDGs for Every Child

The Summit also addressed the Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria (ESG) promoted by the UN in a panel entitled, Where does ESG Go From Here?. ESG investing is also sometimes referred to as sustainable investing, responsible investing, or socially responsible investing (SRI). The practice has become an increasingly popular way to promote the SDGs. The panel featured Neil R. Brown, Managing Director, KKR Global Institute and KKR Infrastructure. KKR Global Institute is the same organization that former US Army General and former CIA Director David Petraeus joined in 2013.

Additionally, a panel entitled, Is the World Ready for A Future Beyond Oil?, featured

H.E. Suhail bin Mohamed AlMazrouei, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure of Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure;

H.R.H Prince Abdulaziz Al Saud, Minister of Energy of Ministry of Energy – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia;

and H.E. Masrour Barzani, Prime Minister of Kurdistan Regional Government.

Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence are a major piece of the Technocratic vision for 2030, so naturally there were several discussions on the use of blockchain, AI, and even 6G (the eventual successor to 5G technology).

There was a discussion on blockchain technology in a panel entitled, The Future of Blockchain… A Perspective from Industry Pioneer, featuring Changpeng Zhao, Chief Executive Officer of Binance, among others. Other panels focused on De-Fi (decentralized finance) featured Jamie Crawley, Editor in Chief of Coin Desk, and Charles Hoskinson, Co-Founder of Ethereum. I have recently reported on Hoskinson’s statements regarding using blockchain to implement ESG and SDG programs and the danger they pose to privacy and liberty.

There was also a panel focused on the introduction of Central Bank Digital Currencies entitled, CBDCs and Stablecoins: Can They Co-Exist?. The CBDCs schemes being rolled out in nations around the world are a crucial component of The Great Reset.

One panel focuses on a concept called Human Meta-Cities, which sound like a rebranding or updating of the so-called Smart Cities. The panel description states,

“in a world of change and rapid technological development, we shed light on a new vision for planning future cities centered around human needs and aspirations. This new framework will help governments refine their role in planning the new world taking advantage of the digital transformation opportunities that are taking place.”

Another panel which makes clear the Technocratic dream was entitled, The Invisible Government: Eliminating Bureaucracy Through Technology. The description of the panel states:

“Technology is creating new possibilities as it simplifies processes, enables instant feedback, and ultimately improves customer experience. In the public sector, digitalization and artificial intelligence are creating a new model of governance – “invisible” governments that are more agile, responsive, human-centric, and data-driven. In this session, global policymakers and experts will share their bold vision and experience in utilizing technology to eliminate bureaucracy and innovate government services for the future.”

What goes unsaid in the panel description is that making the government “invisible” will actually lead to a world of no accountability for government and politicians.

In reality, the Technocrats imagine a world where the tyrannical technological systems are invisible and the average person has zero recourse for preventing exclusion or punishment based on their social credit score.

This is the world these technocrats — many of whom are unelected — envision. The only way this vision will not come to pass is if the people of the world throw their televisions away, ignore the celebrity drama, and start exiting from these slavery systems. 

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First published on March 21, 2022

 

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During 2011, NATO bombed a path to Tripoli to help its proxy forces on the ground oust Gaddafi. Tens of thousands lost their lives and much of Libya’s social fabric and infrastructure lay in ruins.   

The 2016 article appearing in Foreign Policy Journal ‘Hillary Emails Reveal True Motive for Libyan Intervention’ exposed why Libya was targeted. Gaddafi was murdered and his plans to assert African independence and undermine Western hegemony on that continent were rendered obsolete.

A March 2013 Daily Telegraph article ‘US and Europe in ‘major airlift of arms to Syrian rebels through Zagreb’’ reported that 3,000 tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia had been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to rebels.

In the same month of that year, The New York Times ran the article ‘Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands with CIA Aid’, stating that Arab governments and Turkey had sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters. This aid included more than 160 military cargo flights.

In his book ‘The Dirty War on Syria’, Tim Anderson describes how the West and its allies were instrumental in organising and then fuelling that conflict.

Over the last two decades, politicians and the media have been manipulating popular sentiment to get an increasingly war-fatigued Western public to support ongoing conflicts under the notion of ‘protecting civilians’ or a ‘war on terror’.

A yarn is spun about securing women’s rights or fighting terrorists, removing despots (possessing non-existent WMDs) from power or protecting human life to justify military attacks, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of civilian lives and the displacement of many more.

Emotive language designed to instil fear about terror threats or ‘humanitarian intervention’ is used as a pretext to wage imperialist wars in mineral-rich countries and geo-strategically important regions.

Although it has been referred to in many articles over the years, it is worth mentioning again retired NATO Secretary General Wesley Clark and a memo from the Office of the US Secretary of Defense that he was told about just a few weeks after 9/11. It revealed plans to “attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years,” starting with Iraq and moving on to “Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran”. Clark argued this strategy is fundamentally about control of the region’s vast oil and gas resources.

Part of the battle for the public’s hearts and minds is to convince people to regard these wars and conflicts as a disconnected array of events, not the planned machinations of empire. For the last decade, the ongoing narrative about Russian aggression has been part of the strategy.

Anglo-American financial-corporate interests have long been seeking to drive a wedge between Europe and Russia to prevent closer economic alignment. Aside from the expansion of NATO and installation of missile systems in Eastern Europe targeting Russia, there has also been the ever-tightening economic sanctions which the EU has largely been compelled to go along with.

Back in 2014, the proposed (but never implemented) Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was part of the broader geopolitical game plan to weaken Western Europe by making it even more dependent on the US and to divide the European continent by side-lining Russia. While the TTIP may appear to have had nothing to do with what was happening in Ukraine in 2014 (the coup) or Syria, it was a cog in the machine to cement US hegemony.

Much more can be (and has been) written about US strategies to undermine Russia’s fossil-fuel based economy, but the point is that US actions have for some time been aimed at weakening Russia.

The financial-industrial-military complex is setting this agenda, hammered out behind closed doors in its various forums. Those who sit at the top of this complex fine-tune their plans within powerful think tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institute (documented in Brian Berletic’s 2012 article ‘Naming Names: Your Real Government’) as well as at the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg and NATO, as described in the 2008 book by David Rothkopf, ‘Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making’.

It is worthwhile noting the 2019 report ‘Overextending and Unbalancing Russia’ by the influential US policy think tank the Rand Corporation. The document sets out various scenarios for destabilising and weakening Russia, including “imposing deeper trade and financial sanctions” and “providing lethal aid to Ukraine” but without provoking “a much wider conflict in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have significant advantages”.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia did not happen out of the blue. It is not the result of the machinations of a power-hungry madman hellbent on taking over Europe, a notion that mainstream commentators have for a number of years tried to embed in the psyche of the Western public.

A recent analysis appearing on the India-based news channel WION, ‘Did NATO push Ukraine into war?’, provides the type of insightful analysis of events absent from the Western media. It succinctly outlines Russia’s valid concerns about NATO’s expansionist thrust into Eastern Europe and how successive US administrations ignored these concerns for many years, including those from top officials in Washington itself.

That such an analysis remains off the Western media agenda is of no surprise. Prominent journalists in key media outlets are essential foot soldiers whose role is to support power. They are groomed for their positions by various means (the British-American Project being a case in point) as they climb the well-paid career ladder.

Notwithstanding the countless civilian casualties and the suffering currently in Ukraine, a country being used as a pawn in a geopolitical war, there are also the effects of disrupted energy supplies and fertilizer and food exports from Ukraine and Russia which will impact possibly hundreds of millions across the world.

For instance, the war could unleash a “hurricane of hunger” and poverty with the World Bank estimating that the average person in Sub-Saharan Africa will be spending about 35% of their income on food in 2023 if the war in Ukraine drags on. It was a little more than 20% in 2017. Elsewhere, in places like South Asia and the Middle East, the increase could be worse.

But this is merely ‘collateral damage’ worth imposing on others in the calculations of those who determine what the ‘price worth paying’ is and who will pay it.

Nevertheless, the public has been encouraged to support a strategy of increasing tension towards Russia, culminating in the situation we now see in Ukraine, by a media which plays its part well. The media serves as a key cheerleader for US-led wars and ensures the civilian wounded and dead of those conflicts are kept out of the headlines and off the screens, unlike the current situation in Ukraine whose victims receive 24/7 coverage across the major media outlets.

But this comes as little surprise. Former CIA boss General Petraeus stated in 2006 that his strategy was to wage a war of perceptions conducted continuously through the news media.

Many readers will be aware of the revelation back in 2015 about the former editor of a major German newspaper who said he planted stories for the CIA. Udo Ulfkotte claimed he accepted news items written and given to him by the agency and published them under his own name in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

While this came as a shock to many, it was noted decades ago by former senior British intelligence officer Peter Wright (author of the 1987 autobiographical book ‘Spycatcher’) that many top journalists in the UK were associated with MI5.

It was another former CIA boss, William Casey, who in the 1980s said:

“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

Civilian suffering is given full media coverage when it can be used to tug at the emotional heartstrings in order to sway public opinion. Made-for-media outpourings of morality about good and evil are designed to create outrage and support for more ‘interventions’.

The shaping of public opinion is not a haphazard affair. It is now sophisticated and well established.

Take, for instance, the harvesting of Facebook data by Cambridge Analytica to shape the outcomes of the US election a few years back and the Brexit campaign. According to journalist Liam O’Hare writing in 2018, its now defunct parent company Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL) conducted ‘behavioural change’ programmes in more than 60 countries. Its clients included the British Ministry of Defence, the US State Department and NATO.

According to O’Hare, among SCL’s activities in Europe were campaigns targeting Russia. The company had “sweeping links” with Anglo-American political and military interests. In the UK, the interests of the governing Conservative Party and military-intelligence players were brought together via SCL: board members included “an array of Lords, Tory donors, ex-British army officers and defence contractors”.

For O’Hare, all SCL’s activities were inextricably linked to its Cambridge Analytica arm.

He states:

“We finally have the most concrete evidence yet of shadowy actors using dirty tricks in order to rig elections. But these operators aren’t operating from Moscow… they are British, Eton educated, headquartered in the City of London and have close ties to Her Majesty’s government.”

Welcome to the world of mass deception à la Edward Bernays and Joseph Goebbels.

With talk of a ‘no-fly zone’ over Ukraine, sanctions on Russia which Putin says are “akin to a declaration of war” and Biden calling Putin a “war criminal”, the world now finds itself in a ‘thinking the unthinkable’ scenario that was totally avoidable.

The day before the invasion of Ukraine, Putin stated on Russian TV:

“Whoever tries to get in our way and create further threats to our country and our people must know that Russia’s response will come immediately and will lead to consequences without precedent in history. All the necessary decisions have been taken.”

President of the German Council on Foreign Relations Thomas Enders has since responded by calling for a no-fly zone in western Ukraine, which would most likely lead to direct military involvement by NATO:

“It is time for the West to expose Putin’s nuclear threats for what they really are – a bluff to deter Western governments from military intervention.”

Speaking on TV in 2021, prominent US politician and Iraq war veteran Tulsi Gabbard spelt out the consequences of a war with Russia over Ukraine. With thousands of nuclear weapons that the US and Russia have aimed at each other, she said that a nuclear exchange would “exact a cost on every one of us that would result in excruciating death and suffering beyond comprehension”.

And yet, despite what Gabbard warns of, the arrogance and recklessness of power brokers is displayed each day for all to see.

Although it may be regarded as political posturing – in a centuries-old ‘great game’ played out by the ruling elites that boils down to oil, gas, minerals, power, wealth, ego and strategic and military dominance – talk of direct NATO intervention or Putin’s implied threat about the use of nuclear weapons ultimately amounts to those at the pinnacle of power risking gambling away your life and the lives of every living creature on the planet.

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Renowned author Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) in Montreal.

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Read Colin Todhunter’s e-Book entitled

Food, Dispossession and Dependency. Resisting the New World Order

We are currently seeing an acceleration of the corporate consolidation of the entire global agri-food chain. The high-tech/big data conglomerates, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, have joined traditional agribusiness giants, such as Corteva, Bayer, Cargill and Syngenta, in a quest to impose their model of food and agriculture on the world.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is also involved (documented in ‘Gates to a Global Empire‘ by Navdanya International), whether through buying up huge tracts of farmland, promoting a much-heralded (but failed) ‘green revolution’ for Africa, pushing biosynthetic food and genetic engineering technologies or more generally facilitating the aims of the mega agri-food corporations.

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